'There is no shortage of modern songs on 'taboo' subjects.'


Maybe thats because we ask something different of folksongs nowadays. In those days people lived for the main part in isolated communities and the ballad was like an adventure film - showing and warning them of life's extraordinary possibilities - were they to break away from their relatively safe predictable lives. There be dragons!


Nowadays we look to folksong as a confirmation of our identities and common humanity, because we live in large amorphous anomic societies.