Whistle Stop, I think you missed the point. At least for my part in it, I tried to view the issue (long battles about "what is folk" that occurred on Usenet long before they started here at Mudcat) from an extremist point of view, although there's truth in the song. It was written with a sense of humor, which may not be evident to those who 1) have none, 2) don't think other people have one, 3) take opinions that differ from theirs as personal threats, or 4) would rather be offended (and dream up motives) than take the time to try to understand why people say what they do.

There is an equally sanctimonious opposite point of view - "Folk music = all music. It's folk music because we say so, and we're going to ignore any previous definition of the word, and anyone who doesn't agree with us is a big old poopy-head." This is also known as the "never heard a h*rse sing it" theory. I wonder what people who believe this think is the difference between all music they like and/or play and folk music...

Try this one:
If you never sing a new song, nothing new will get passed on
We'll only have the same old stuff we've sung since time began
Good thing the "please don't sing it" crowd weren't there then, or weren't real loud
Cause all the lyrics we would have would be "diddle daddle dan"

Chorus:
But somebody had to write the songs and somebody had to pass 'em on
So find the ones you like, and make them all your own
And someone will hear it anew, and learn the melody from you
And in this way tradition carries on

If a song is newly written, it may not worth learnin'
There's an awful lot of awful stuff, too personal and long
But all you really have to do is pick the ones that call to you
And let the test of time weed out the weak ones from the song

(somebody please tell me I'm not in another one of those pointless discussions again...crap...)