Stuart, I also rocked along to the joyous strains of "Fixin' To Die Rag" (even though Country Joe didn't have the grace to acknowledge that he'd nicked the tune from Kid Ory's "Muskrat Ramble) at the time. I'm not quite as dogmatic as I might appear - and I'm certainly not apolitical by any means. I have very strong views on the ways of the world and will engage with anyone in a reasoned debate on them - but I like to keep my musical world separate from that all that. If I really wanted to influence public opinion in a political sense, then my method would be through print, or via the net, or by personal interaction, and not through song.

I asked, many weeks ago, in a similar thread, for 'Catters to name me one overtly political folk song which had, to their knowledge, actually had some effect on the political spectrum and really changed something 'at the top'. I didn't get one response to that question. I'll repeat it here - and I'll be happy to hear of any. Country Joe may have had some effect on the 'stoned youth of Woodstock' (whoever he was), and on the anti-Vietnam movement, but I suspect in my cynical old heart that the Vietnam war stopped when the US politicians at the top realised that it was really lost in Vietnam.

For me, the problem of singers performing 'protest' songs at a folk club - even in the early days - was always the tacit assumption that, because you attended the club and were interested in folk song, you were necessarily of the same political persuasion as everyone else there. And even if we were of the same persuasion, what was the point in preaching to the converted? If you really want to get your musical protest heard - sing it on the steps of 10 Downing Street, or outside your local town hall, or outside the houses of prominent politicians.

There's a wonderful piece of satire in the Tony Hancock film "The Rebel" where he's talking to a group of young admirers sat round him. He's recounting his previous conformist life in the office where he worked - wearing a suit, regimented, all workers looking and acting exactly alike - to a a crowd of young people all wearing black polo neck sweaters and black beards, all nodding in unison. My point exactly.

I really thought MacColl's diktat to write a song about Vietnam "by next week" - and then to criticise Charles Parker's effort in the most stupid terms was loathsome. If he genuinely thought it was dishonest to write a song in someone else's character, then I wonder what he would have made of Randy Newman's wonderfully constructed and subtle songs - like "Rednecks" or "Short People". Two songs, by the way, which I love and would accept as subtly political - but I still don't think they've changed the world.