The problem is that most folk music takes place in folk clubs. Now I don't have anything against folk clubs, though I admit to having attended a few crap ones long ago, but their remit is not by and large to explore the limits of what folk might legitimately be, nor to chart the transformation of popular songs but to give the regular punters what they expect to hear with some liquid refreshment.

Over time this has compounded a historical resistance to the new and modern, which was one of the reasons clubs began originally, into a kind of reactionary musical stance - enthusiasts for a music defined by change resisting the very change that defined it. That's one of the reasons you're as likely to hear folk song at a football ground as a folk club. It's also why as much as I love English traditional song, I've have low traddie tolerance.