That's what the folk process is - a song originates, and if it evolves and changes, it becomes a folk song. If it doesn't evolve, it's not a folk song. No more, no less. It's a description, not a value juegement.

Traditional Songs are supposedly no longer changing and evolving; traddy purists (like me) get irked when someone, however so innocently, might sing Child Ballad #10 to the melody traditionally associated with Child Ballad #1 - and how many times do I sing Child #1 to be told I'm doing the wrong words? Maybe the irony is that Folk is too subjective ever to have an objective definition; and even a purist like me is not beyond coming up with my own tune for a traditional set of words even when the traditional melody is alive and well; and if there is no melody, I might extemporise one as I'm going along. How often do I hear that the melody to the Twa Corbies is traditional to that song? On the Songs of Witchcraft CD, someone even sets a poem by Robert Graves to the Traditional melody of the Twa Corbies. Does this really bother anyone? Or is this all part of The Folk Process too? Or is the Folk Process really so remote and archaic that it doesn't happen any more? Uber Traddy Peter Bellamy wrote his own tune to On Board a '98 because he didn't think traditional one was good enough for the words; this was the song he opened his shows with, and for an encore he'd do a Stones cover.

No one's trying to say anything that isn't true here; go through the Digital Tradition - there you'll find Traditional songs rubbing shoulders with Dylan songs, Alan Bell songs, Johnny Handle songs, Graham Miles songs, and Beatles songs. There too you'll find at least one uncredited Ron Baxter song (his parody of The Fields of Athenry) and any amount of other stuff, no doubt, which languishes uncredited and, by default, anonymous. Diverse as it all is, it's all gathered together in the name of Folk.

Despite my occasional tampering with melody, I sing 99% Traditional English Language Song. My reason for doing so is because there is a quality in such material I find nowhere else which I feel is entirely due to the extent such songs have been shaped and refined by the cultural and individual ingenuity and circumstance which some might call The Folk Process. Looking at the old Broadsides and Chapbooks however, I begin to wonder; maybe it's due to something entirely, but as happy as I am living in 2009, I like old stuff too, (even if I do sing it like a bad pop singer). Folk is a concept as much as it is a Construct; it might even be said to be a Conspiracy, but at the end of the day it's about what speaks to the individual singer and what s/he is moved to sing on their next visit to their local folk club, singaround or festival. It is their Folk Sensitivities that moves them to be there in the first place, and to have chosen a song with respect of that sensitivity, be it traditional or otherwise, but I'd say that ultimately, it is the Folk Sensitivity of the individual singer that makes any given song a Folk Song, be it a traditional ballad, a Christy Moore song, or their version of a Johnny Cash cover of a Nine Inch Nails song.

This is what I see happening in the clubs & festivals anyway; songs sung in the name of folk.