The reason, maybe, that people have trouble with "Folk" as a genre is that it's broader, perhaps, than a music category.

Constant exposure to commercialized folk numbs the senses and causes a shock when you hear what P Simon heard that became Graceland (i. e. we lose a kind of linkage to any music created without expectation of remuneration.

It helps to remember that folk music is that which is created as a means of expression (could have just as easily manifested as a visual expression, except the author could muster make better rhyming skills than dextrous) that has to come out.

The creator is compelled to express. And will do so whether the product is ultimately exchanged for the means of keeping body and soul together or not.

So in that vein, folk music can manifest any category of music, even classical (Mr. Holland's Opus) or as cadance for marching soldiers. The best and purest folk songs, perhaps, are those made up by children on the playground.

That does not preclude making money. It just recognizes that the song would have been born anyway. If a coal miner makes up a tune to pass time and protect against fear and boredom, the tune may someday be professionally arranged and become a hit; it's still a folk song.

I could be way off base, but I like to think that some of Ochs, Dylan, Simon, Lightfoot, McTell and Stan Rogers would fall under this definition.

When you write, ask yourself: is this for money, or am I simply compelled. If a word, line or verse demands to be changed to suit the sensitivities of the audience, demand of yourself, on occasion, that the line stand. Because that's the way you felt it, the way your being needed to express it, and compromise would be like getting a slap in the face from your lover.