What makes a folksinger one is that h/sh/e can sense the clear intent behind the forms, the whisper from another age that tells a tale centuries ahead to someone who can hear it.

It is not just a technical skill, I maintain, but a sort of clairvoyance, or even psychic timetravel which enables the voice of the 18th century foretop man to come ringing through and slip through the window of the twenty-first century parlor singer.

This is not just "knowing songs", I submit for consideration, but a form of psychic ability to ttravel through the very walls of Time itself. Now this does not happen all the time, for sure; how many times can you hear Danny Boy or the Rocks O' Bawn and still make the trip back to the north of Scotland or an Irish serf's field in the (18th?) century?

But every now and then, the broadcast slips through, and you _are_ there, staring at holystoned decks in Baltimore or watching Kevin Barry swing, with bile in your mouth from the injustice of it.

And when that happens, no matter where or when, mates, folk music gets down right elECTrifying!

Like adrenalin itself, its the rush of that connection that brings us back time and again.

Amos waxing overmuch