To me personally, it's songs that tell stories in some sort of historical context. Modern country lyrics and pop lyrics in general are just endless recycled cliches and I think it's that sort of writing the gets the snigger snogwriter response. It's lazy mass production. However there are songs out there that have the certain something in terms of lyrical observation that raises them above the mundane and fixes them in their time so that they will be of interest to the future. In many ways these songs are like the archeology of the future, there is something solid about them that means they are preserved and preservable artifacts rather than the throwaway perishables.When re-discovered they may well be called folk songs.
Maybe it's Morrisey, maybe it's not. Time will tell. But it could equally be one of those songs from one of those ten guitars. I agree it's like panning for gold, but the hope of finding that one nugget is worth a bit more than the cheap sneering dismissal the modern singer/songwriter too often gets in the folk world.
I agree it's become a thing far too many people think they can do, and very very few ever produce anything of value, but I suppose I'm glad so many try to express themselves in song. Not everyone who paints is a Monet, not everyone who writes songs is a Cole Porter or a Richard Thompson, but why don't we encourage their attempts with an indulgent smile rather than with an easy put down. They do no harm to the human race.
Everyone starts somewhere!