"Likewise it may be "traditional" to sing "You'll never walk alone" at football matches, but that doesn't necessarily make it a folk song."
.,,.

Nobody said it did, Howard. The term 'folk song' appears deliberately to have been omitted from the thread title, and whether a pop song can become such is not what is being discussed here.

(However, I did put this very example, as to whether 'walk alone' could be regarded as a folksong when sung at Anfield, as I have related here before, to Bert Lloyd in an interview I did with him for Folk Review (Sep 1974). "Folk in function but not in form," he replied. "In folk, does not the function define the form to some extent?" I rejoined. "It does to some extent," he conceded.)

≈M≈