One last try -
Jim wrote -
Now, it seems, there is nothing about folk songs that set them apart from other songs
Are you suggesting that I am saying that - because I am not. I am trying to get to the roots of your claim that you made about their 'uniqueness' when you wrote - "Sorry Vic - you (and everybody here) is ignoring the uniqueness of fok songs"
If there is something that is unique then that is exciting and I have been pursuing you for a statement on or list of these special qualities that are not found anywhere in other song - but it is not forthcoming. It is not enough to list the people who in your opinion - 'knew' what a folk song is (Bert, Walter, Mary Delaney, Hamish, Gavin Greig). It's the nature of the unique qualities that you claim that I am pursuing without success. I stand by my former claim that you quoted "that instinct was not enough" Neither is what I would call the insiders' mystique of "these people knew...." enough and I would still maintain that when A.L. Lloyd wrote "In any case no special mystical virtue attaches to the notion of folk song" he was expressing this in different words.