Jim, you said earlier that 'from the outside' pop songs offered no settings. I offered 'Leader of the Pack' as an example of a popular song which has a similar narrative arc to a number of trad songs - transgressive romance, interdiction by authority, warning chorus/commentary, death and loss - as a folklorist might define it. Flip the ending (which folk often does) and we have Tam Lin on motorbikes - at least in plot. "The wares of a cynical and avaricious music industry" won't hold up as an indicator of form or type.

One of the things that surprised me when I first came across these arguments was how reluctant traditionalists were to see the folk revival in context. It resembled a belief system, one that arrived fully formed and worked if you didn't ask the wrong questions. I'm not made of that stuff, I want to subject the thing to all kinds of blows to understand why this music attracts and has been appropriated by such a narrow social group, especially when most of that group do not resemble its originators in any way.

My introduction to the 'debate' was to be told in short order I was one of the many who didn't understand. From that point I've been happy to conflate every last authority figure who told me I didn't understand something and was prepared to use ridicule as their first and last weapon - 54 Mudcatter's haven't let me down.

It's all about the music. It's mine as much as your's.