A significant number of folk songs are too well crafted to have been penned by the unschooled. Frequently, those who were educated were better equipped to advocate for people in need than the needy themselves. Given a social conscience, they did so in song and story. Dickens, to cite one example, was such an advocate in that he depicted the lives of the poor in such a way as to awaken a sense of social responsibility in his day.

A significant portion of what we think of as folk music in the U.S. emerged or re-emerged out of the crucible of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, and Socialism and the labor movement were both seen by many as a solution to the ills that surrounded and harmed them. Woodie Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Josh White and many others were of that time and had a ready audience. Much of that music, especially the blues, came from uneducated or under-educated people. Much of it was older work, re-discovered. But, a significant contribution came from writers and performers whose work was underwritten by Roosevelt's "New Deal" support of the arts during that time. The result was what mattered, not the social standing of the artist.

Folk songs speak for themselves, no matter their origins. They have no "class." We assign this standing based on how we view them through our diminuitive personal prisms.

Then, there is the pure entertainment or amusement factor. A huge amount of music, literature and theatre exists mainly to divert attention from daily sufferings and anxieties for a time. That need is as old as communication itself.