Oh Dick, I can't keep quoting your own post back at you. Go and read them for yourself. You made authorative statements about what is or is not folk music, about what should be played in folk clubs and what audiences (not just you) expect to hear.

if you provide the 1954 definition

You invoked it not me. It seems that it is only freely available to academics not the hoi-paloi -
Definition of Folk Music - Maud Karpeles

My question is, how does it apply differently to songs by John Lennon from how it applies to songs by, for instance, you.

Toothpaste?