By and large I am as vehement a critic of that bitch Thatcher as anyone, but it's nice to know she did something useful. The appearance of country music as a a popular phenomenon both here and in Ireland is another demonstration of American cultural imperialism, and while country can at a stretch be categorised as an extension of the folk experience of the USA, it is a cuckoo in the nest of the music of other countries just as damaging to indigenous phenomena as the export of "christian" values by the British empire.

That doesn't mean that it cannot form part of the extended mass that I am hoping to name in this thread, and it doesn't mean that it is without musical merit (although I pretty universally hate it with the possible exception of a couple of Bonnie Raitt performances, but that is a matter of preference not definition, and gainsaid by the fact that I occasionally do sing "Love has no pride").

The idea that creative thought can never be dangerous cannot possible withstand a moment's consideration, and surely the unreasoned first paragraph of WLD's makes it clear that what he addresses are his inner demons and not any wider truth. The romantic idea of a working class revolution and the ascendancy of a working class culture is surely unnecessary in a country that can adopt Thicks Beckham as a hero and call Mrs Beckham "Posh". That country has thereby been proved to have been conquered by working class culture. No revolution or railing against middle class feifdoms (surely a contradiction in terms) is necessary. The sadness of that is that the Fabian idea of self improvement has been lost and replaced by (nice phrase here borrowed from another poster, I don't know if it's original) a "prolier than thou" slumcult.

What, IMHO led to much criticism of Seeger was that she as an American should dare to pontificate on the folk music of England, and even how it "should" be performed - an act of colonial imperialism: that and the fact that if you listem to some Ewan MacColl recordings they are (as, I daresay, his live performances were) gravely harmed by some out of time and out of tune banjo plunking, and I say that as someone who is no great fan of MacColl's own performance or indeed his own betrayal of his own origins by his re-invention of himself, a lad from the outskirts of Salford, as Jock McTavish the cartoon Scotsman. He wrote some good songs though - even though by definition they are not folk, and that is another reason we need a name for the body of material of which they form part. I am a great fan of his politics, and his military career, but that is a different story.

Bah. I did not have that half hour to waste.