Strangely enough Nottanum Town is one song i did ask Ewan macColl about. What did it mean, and he was very patient with me and explained it was all about riual and magic and he advised me to look at The Hunchback of Notre Dame to get a flavour of the festival of all fools.

Is it a folk song, when only learned men can conjecture at the meaning.

or is it a folk song when Bob Dylan writes a variant that scares the shit out of your parents, makes you proud to be young in a world of bloody old warmongers, takes a part in igniting the resistance to the Vietnam War. I believe there were some heavy metal versions.

which is the folk song? Which involves folk, and which involves dessicated old farts saying shush! when somebody wonders when its going to end, and the performer saying oh dear me I've forgotten the words, because nobody really knows the meaning - so no wonder somebody's forgotten them.

Which is the living art form?

i've an idea, which your answer will be. But I was listening just recently to one of our most talented young singers having a bash at Sheaf and Knife. He was doing cos it was worthy thing to do - every serious actor wants to have a go at the Hamlet soliloquy. I really didn't feel he had any purchase on the characters in the story, or that quite frankly that it fitted into a modern young mans mouth.

I think a lot of creative energy is being wasted on stuff that is quite resistant to being brought back to life. If there are eternal truths in these songs they are frequently very well hidden.

And I think I know enough about folk music through both my reading and listening in folk clubs for forty years and performing for over thirty years to be allowed an opinion as to what constitutes folk music - even if if it doesn't conform to everybody elses.

as for the bloke who wants ten reprensentative folksongs. why can't he stretch a point, and listen to eleven. Who knows perhaps the eleventh will give him an idea of the vain nature of his quest.