I am not sure about last week Iains but in general that sums it up. I thought a bit more about it and that raised more questions. The tune I played on the link I gave some posts back sounds, to me anyway, east European. Whether it is like an east European folk song or not I cannot say but as it was learned, by my Dad, from a traveling Gypsy band and then passed to me aurally it becomes a folk song by that definition.

It then got even more complicated. If we look at the German folk song 'muss i denn' or the Russian folk song 'Stenka Rasin', which have both been re-interpreted by pop artists, are they still folk songs? If Elvis was to play an acoustic version of 'Wooden Heart' or the Seekers did an acoustic 'Carnival is over' at a folk club, would they fit the folk song definition? It is for these very reasons that I came to the conclusion that definitions must be, by nature, very flexible. I think that the best way to decide what is a folk song or not is by popular opinion. Popular meaning the voice of the very folk who listen.

Will probably be a disputed definition but so will many others!

DtG