However, most of us can spot a qualitative difference, both in in form and historical function, between the Wild Rover and Eleanor Rigby.

Both might be folk songs according the 1954 Definition; both might be folk sings according to the Horse Definition; both are songs I'd rather never hear again for the rest of my life, and yet both will, in all probability, be sung in the name of Folk at our Folk Club on Thursday Night. It's okay though; I will have checked in the shattered sherds of my brain on the way in in exchange for the sort of boozy intoxication that will ensure that I have a jolly good time regardless. I will be but a part of the community, faceless in my inebriation, off my folking head to such an extent that I will, no doubt, sorely regret it the next day. This whole thing is about Folk Empiricism not Qualitative Differences Both In Form and Historical Function; the former is about taking life squarely, and subjectively, on the jaw, whilst the latter is looking at life from the objective outside, assuming such a place exists at all, which I rather doubt to be honest.