Choosing a song to sing, or making one up - either way it is about communication. You do it because you want to express yourself, get something across.

There are times, a lot of times, when what you want to say is easily seen as political. There are times when it's about things that may not be readily recognised as political, but are political, in a real sesne - "the personal is political". And there are times when songs are about things that aren't, at least at this point, political. (Anything can be political when the currents of the time dictate.)

At this time, I think the most important political thing about folk music isn't so much the content of the songs, it's the fact that essentially it exists outside the control of the entertainment industry, and stands for the power of people to own the music we make, and to use it as we choose to shape the world.

As for "the two finest song writers of the 20th century" -I think playing rankings like that is playing into the hands of the enertainment industry. Ewan MacColl and Woodie Guthrie were both fine song writers, and that's good enough. Perhaps the greatest thing about them is that they inspired other people to feel that they could use songs to say what they felt needed to be said, rather than just sitting back and applauding a performance as aesthetics and entertainment.