"Not a hanging offense."
Of course it isn't Michael, and if Dylan had come under the sustained, lifelong attacks that MacColl has had aimed at him, and still is, it would be equally outrageous.
Arguments like these have the inevitable consequences of forcing people to take sides in a war that really should not be being fought.
Dylan and MacColl were two different people with different objectives, yet one is constantly being set against the other - you may just as well compare the work of the National Concert Orchestra with that of T Rex.
I only get involved in these sometimes extremely nasty and very personal debates because I believe that a mass of very important work on an even more important subject is being wasted,
MacColl's argument from day one was that Folk Song was 'The Voice of the People - he equally argued that the ballads where "the highwater of the tradition and, at because of what they were, they were every bit as important as Shakespeare, or Dickens, as aspects of our culture.
It seems a fair enough argument to at least listen to what he had to say rather than throw stones at it
Jim Carroll