Message to Jim Carroll.
Quote
"Apart from a tiny handful of 'custom songs' and those sung at sporting gatherings or in the schoolyard, the singing traditions of these islands are as dead as Monty Python's Norwegian Blue. They died when people stopped making songs that reflected their lives and events of their communities and passing them on to enable others to adapt them to serve the same purpose; they died when they/we sat back and let others make their/our culture for them/us, becoming passive recipients of a manufactured 'product' culture rather than relying on the innate talents we all posess."

I refer the Honourable member to the answer I gave some moments ago.
Jim, just go and find the John Tams hommage to MacColls original Radio Ballads.

1 The Song Of The Steel.
2 The Enemy that lies within (Hiv/Aids)
3 The Horn of the Hunter.
4 Swings and Roundabouts. (Circus life).
5 Songs Of Conflict. (Northern Ireland)
6 Shipyards.

And the new one about the the anniversary of the Miners Strike.

If you want, I'll send you them. But, don't tell me that the folk process is dead.
It's just insulting to the many fine songwriters who are providing songs for future generations.
Maybe with guitars, synthesisers whatever.
People are angry, and angry people write angry songs. every day. It'll never stop.
Long may it continue.
If you want to bury your head in the past, please, carry on.
Me? I'll hold my head up high, and embrace the music and talent that I see around me now.