How was the Road to Damascus?

My Folk Faith insists on authenticity, JC; this is how I was raised, to think of the Old Songs as integral aspects of the people, communities & traditions that created them. I might argue with the finer points of that, but when I sing (say) The Collier's Rant it is by way of direct communion with my own cultural dreaming, the vibrant wonder of which I first caught glimpses of in my childhood whilst the family gathered around my grandmother's kitchen range on a cold winter's night and my grandfather sang of the two hapless miners and their encounters with their various demons both actual and metaphorical.

Otherwise - I heartily agree with Pip about Radical Tourism; that emotive polical songs have been written by non-working-class folkies about the struggles of the working-class is an idealistic pornography which I find irksome in the extreme. I'd have to include The Blackleg Miner in that. Just a shame Billy Bragg wasn't savvy enough to point this out to Nick Griffin at the time; and doubly a shame that FAF persists in wishing to claim it as authentic!

And (b) hi Suibhne, thought you weren't playing on Mudcat any more?

In the words of one Marshall Mathers:

Now this looks like a job for me
So everybody just follow me
Cause we need a little controversy
Cause it feels so empty without me...

I'd even log-in but it won't let me...