Dear Nigel -

I must have missed the thread you refer to. All it proves is that some people don't think very far. Folk music in its origins was the music of the people in the sense of 'ordinary' people, the hoi-poloi, the rank and file, the ones whose lives didn't matter much in history. They sangs about working on the railroad or being drafted into the army, yes, but there were also songs of outrage, injustice, poetry - things common to every class. Many songs today regarded as traditional had middle class authors. Nobles like Wallace, Bruce, and Bonnie Prince Charlie were immortalised in Scottish folk song. The educationally privileged have been responsible for most revolutions, anyway.

Folk music has never been that popular with the Powers-That-Be, just because of this taint of sedition. Finer classes of people listened to something else. Finer classes of people also tended to have a great deal of power over the less fortunate, who have, historically, had little opportunity to change the situation. The working class are one such group. African-Americans are another. Women another.

People, of whatever social class (God! Isn't this British?), who try to do something to improve the situation of others tend to be those who care about other humans in the first place, and are probably attracted to folk for the same reasons as me: folk is just about the only place the story of the ordinary person is remembered.

So keep listening, Nigel. We need all the help we can get.