This started out with an attempt to effect some sort of disambiguation between the terms Folk and Traditional with respect of the 1954 Definition of Folk Song as originally stated by the International Folk Music Council. As we have seen, the IFMC changed their name to The International Council for Traditional Music, to clarify their objectives with respect of (and I quote) traditional music, including folk, popular, classical and urban music, and dance of all countries.

Whilst we don't know the current status of the 1954 Definition with respect of the ICTM, we do know the current status of the 1954 Definition with respect of certain Folkies - which is to say that of a shibboleth, the questioning of which is heretical despite that fact that it does not adequately describe the sort of musics being performed in the name of Folk Music in the Folk Clubs, Folk Festivals etc. in 2009 - and, indeed, for some considerable time before that.

Having attended Folk Clubs, Folk Festivals etc. for some 35 years now, I ventured the suggestion that Folk Music was more a matter of Context than Content. This is no idle theory, but an observation of the sad fact (sad for a Traddy like me that is) that precious little of the music performed in Folk Clubs, Folk Festivals etc. is in anyway Traditional Music. Indeed, from what I have experienced, it can be anything from amateur stabs at operatic aria to (and it hurts me to even write it, believe you me) Hotel California (fruitcake anyone?)

Some posts ago I summed up my position by saying if life offers you lemons, you make lemonade. So I make an attempt, as objectively as possible, to define Folk along the lines of Folk Is What Folk Does - in other words, Folk Song is that which is sung by Folk Singers in Designated Folk Contexts such as Folk Clubs, Folk Festivals, etc. and includes pretty much any type (or genre) of music, or attempt at same, by musicians both amateur and professional, who evidently believe that Folk Music is a matter of context too - otherwise they wouldn't do what they do. Does Jez Lowe do Folk Music? What about Rachel Unthank? Is her cover of Robert Wyatt's Sea Song folk music? What about the unaccompanied version I heard some weeks ago sung by a female singer in a singaround who had never heard of Robert Wyatt but had assumed it was (and I quote) a proper folk song?

So these are the facts of the case. I have seen nothing in 35 years of attending Folk Clubs, Folk Festivals etc. to convince me otherwise. Indeed, interest in purely Tradition Song is often wholly anomalous in a Folk Context - and as a few people here have pointed out, there are depressingly few singarounds that actively welcome big ballads. Indeed, at one Folk Festival we regularly attend, there is a session devoted exclusively to Ballads which follows on from a general singaround mid-way through the Saturday afternoon in the same bar. I have never seen a room empty so quickly as when the announcement is made that the Ballad Session is about to commence. Once I heard the comment (from an otherwise respected singer of traditional songs) that singing Child Ballads was a bit dodgy with the present concerns of Paedophilia. I kid ye not.

So - if life offers you lemons, you make lemonade. Which is all I'm attempting to do here by the way, to take a look at this thing we call Folk Music as an empirical phenomenon of human music making and how it might differ from other musics. In many cases the only difference is that it calls itself Folk Music, which is telling in itself and leads one to consider if it can really be so simple as a matter of designation. I look a bit deeper and see there are other differences afoot; a certain philosophical mindset perhaps that might will any music to be Folk Music simply by saying it is so, and a certain something I have no hesitation in calling Cultural Autism which many Folkies and Traddies (myself included) suffer from to a greater or lesser extent.

One clear manifestation of this autism is a fear of change and a need for clearly defined boundaries; a lack of personal security and a deep seated need for belonging which exists, paradoxically, alongside ones status as a resolute outsider. In The Tradition we often find the collective meme being safeguarded by the most idiosyncratic of performers - Davie Stewart is a classic example of this, known as The Galoot even by his own community. In the old songs, the traditional songs, we find a tangible link to a vanished past; it's comforting, reassuring; and for many this is all they want - comfort and reassurance - and who can blame them? Maybe it's these same individuals who then go on to write their own songs about the past - idiomatic laments and paeans that still might pass as Folk Song (though not by the 1954 Definition) and might be sung heartily in singarounds. I think of Scowie's When All men Sing as a near perfect example of this. When I sing this in good company, I cease to exist; my corporeal body is absorbed into a greater human whole much as it might be in the singing of Sorrows Away or Blood Red Roses.

Nostalgia is a persuasive beast. It might make those same singers throw in the occasional bit of pop music from the past, or some Dylan, or whatever; something special to them, something they want to bring into the fold in the name of Folk, and something which becomes a Folk Song simply because it embodies a similar level of meaning to the singer as might any old traditional chestnut. Did I mention the chap who once sang his own composition which he introduced as a Folk Song about Rock n' Roll? To me, that says it all really.