Brian, you started a trail of thought in my migraine-box: Like you, I often bemoan the fact that "people just don't sing any more", yet we both know some people who sing, a precious few. And I wonder: Is the ratio of singers vs passive listeners that much different now, from the past?

Surely not every ploughboy was vocally gifted, not every market gardener or flock-tender. Those (few?) that were, were sought after and asked to do their bit when occasion arose, and the majority (? I am guessing of course) simply enjoyed listening to them.

Yes, there has been a tendency towards manufactured music (famous line of a Harvey Andrews' young admirer: "was this song you sang yours, or was it proper music, on CD and that...?". Yes, most people are embarassed to sing today, and they are made to think that to be a singer you have to look good, wear bling and such. But vocalisation of one's feelings is too close to the surface as a skill to be suppressed for long. So perhaps, just perhaps, my (and your) doomsaying is off the mark.

Perhaps a song like Nizlopi's JCB one, born of personal experience and echoing the sentiments of listeners, when it is sung by youngsters on the return of a coach trip, is simply undergoing a sort of "folk process". It may not be what you and I would call a "folk song" because it does not match the prototypes of form or structure we have in our minds/experience, but then, how much does our opinion matter on the subject? It's a cliche, but "this thing is bigger than both of us"...(the folk process, I mean).

Perhaps we are too close and inspecting the trees, to appreciate the wood - even as rainforests are disappearing (beat that for mixing metaphors!). Or to quote a great 20th century philosopher: "It could be folk, Brian, but not as we know it!"