Do you really believe that The Great Pretender is typical fair in UK folk clubs?

From time to time I might segue a rendering of Up on the Roof (Carol King, Laura Nyro, The Drifters et al, but mostly The Drifters, in my heart anyway) into a rendering of The Innocent Hare at our local (generally non-trad.) folk club. I do this because 1) they are both contenders for my favourite song and as such deserving of a similar place in my heart and 2) I believe much of what we (myself included) have come to think of as Traditional Song is a bit of a red herring sold to us by the selectivity of the variously motivated collectors and subsequent folky-spin doctors. However, to paraphrase Mark E. Smith*, I still believe in Trad. Folk dream; Trad. Folk as primal scream. Much choice that I have about it...

Good songs should be sung anywhere, by anyone so moved to sing them, and if that is Folk Music (which it is) then where better a place to sing them than in a Folk Club?

* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pejedJ8gm5c

The Fall - Live at the Witch Trials

We're still one step ahead of you
I still believe in the R and R dream
R and R as primal scream
Tied to the Puritan Ethic
Non-sympathetic to spastics
After all this, still a lonely bastard.
Eggheads, boneheads, queue
Queue for them
We were early and we were late
But, still, live at the witch trials....