"Just to say that JC's last 3 posts are almost pleasant in nature."
Don't get too smug; you aint seen nothin' yet!

"How else might we account for so divisive a work as Daddy, What Did You Do in the Strike? which even at this distance puts shivers down my spine."
It sent (and still sends) shivers down my spine to think that Augusto Pinochet's friend was allowed to smash the mining industry, throw many thousands on the dole and destroy whole communities; while describing anybody who opposed her as "The Enemy Within" and telling us "there is no such thing as society" - now that's what I call divisive - but that's my (and was MacColl's) take on the miners strike.
People took sides - that's what happens in cases like these:

"They say in Harlan County
There ain't no neutrals there,
You'll either be a union man
Or a scab for J H Blair,
Join the NMU, join the NMU."

It shouldn't really be an issue here (unless we want a replay of those events - in which case, re-open another thread).
In the years I was involved with the Singers Club (despite stories to the contrary) I never witnessed anybody being prevented from singing or interrupted because people objected to the contents of their songs, though I did visit many other clubs where I was asked not to sing political or contemporary or accompanied material. Ewan and Peggy and members of the Critics Group were regularly having similar attempts at restrictions put on their performances. Yet it was the Singers Club that got the reputation for being repressive!
I'm pretty sure any decent club would, quite rightly, draw a line at racist material, but, say a pro-Thatcherite song would more likely have provoked heated debate in the bar, and quite likely opposition in kind from the resident singers; can't see the harm in that.
But in the main, censorship of songs because of their politics (which appears to be rumbling away in the background of this debate) is a no-no as far as I'm concerned.
I never experienced it myself, but some years ago a number of singer friends of my were shouted off the stage because they sang what were regarded as 'sexist' songs - the result - we lost a large slice of our best material. The same happened with some of the whaling songs - pity!
Jim Carroll