1)Look at the songs in the Mudcat Database.
2)Make a list of the common characteristics in them.
3)Use those to decide the relative 'folkishness' of one you're not sure about.

4)I'm not kidding. Dick & Susan, with help, have compiled a very large list of songs which 'almost' any of us would agree ARE folk.....or very closely related to folk....or very likely to be accepted AS folks in the future.

By extracting the defining common concepts of a huge number, one automatically has a working definition.

Thus, stuff 'written' by Ewan MacColl usually gets in, while "Nine-Inch Nails"...not so much.


There...now isn't that easier than trying to create a single definition and argue forever about precise wording?












Hark! Do I hear dissenting voices mumbling, "yeah, but..." in the distance?