Will: We had a band from Kent at our "club" (for want of a better word) last Monday. They've been going for over 40 years and one or two of the members have written songs which have been absolutely accepted in clubs all over the country - also for around 40 years.

And I was at an Open Mic in Devon last night where one of the young guys who normally plays in a rock trio did a solo acoustic fingerstyle song he wrote very recently, which was so excellent that (as someone noted way up the thread) "I wanted to learn it immediately". Never heard him do it before, but it too has the potential to be "accepted in clubs all over the country" IMO if people pick it up and run with it. I'm learning it myself at the moment.

I've "propagated" Bob Kenward's "Dr Syn" and "Man of Kent" into Devon where at least 2-3 people have picked them up, and I'm already seeing "the folk process" working on them in terms of slightly different tunes (hell, *I* sing slightly different tunes to the ones Bob wrote) and a few lyric alterations.

All these songs have the "story telling structure characteristic of trad songs".

Will: I'm trying to make the point that folk song is invested with a lot of baggage - baggage which can destroy a love of music for its own sake. This thread is proof enough of that!

Absolutely Will....the close-mindedness and prescritiveness which I see on many of the threads here sits totally at odds with the open, welcoming attitude and sheer "joy in music" that I get at the clubs, sessions and open mics I go to!Can't believe it's the same people (actually, it probably isn't :-) )