Ya know, emily, you raise the most interesting questions. People often think of folk-singers as those capable of facing nothing more drastic than a hot cup of cappuccino in a bistro. But the fact is that a lot of social mechanisms are brought in to being just to make it easy to avoid facing the unpleasant aspects of life such as getting so het up in jealous fires that you commit a scandalous murder, or a treachery of some sort, or feeling obligated to expose the raw stuff of the human soul in ordinary experience such as love... anyway, this is the critical issue: is there a place where human experience exceeds human-ness, and therefore should not be talked about? If Tom Dooley can sing about murdering Laura Foster, what sort of human passions should be shunned and never discussed? And, for God's sake, why???????

I do not believe there are easy answers to any of these questions.

But thanks, at the very least, for holding out for the right questions!!


A