"Calling The Beggarmen 'singing pullovers' seems a bit harsh."
Not really Al
It was't meant to be an insult; it was, I think, a term conjured up by Billy Connolly, to describe a type oe watered- down folk song that some peole cut their folk teeth on
I enjoyed it occasionally but, like The Liverpool Spinners, who introduced me to folk songs, it was afar to samey and unimaginative to hold my attention
Folk song is a largely unexploited mine of enjoyment, information and social hostory - these groups so the most superficial of it's aspects and used it as lightweight entertainment
You might have difficulty with this, but I once heard Luke Kelly say this one night when The Dubliners turned up to see Ewan one night as the singers club
Luke still thought the sun shone out of Ewan's arse right up to his death

"I may not be the first to have the thought that I would not particularly want to hear a song about somebody farting in church. "
But you're quite happy to hear a song anout a daughter's loverr having his hart ripped out and served up in a glass of wine, or a young servant accused of accosting a Lord's wife ripped apart by horses, or a ploghman being put to death by having his back broken across a plough coulter.... how quaintly selective -all part of Traditional Balladry, and are pretty offensive
I wonder how you feel about a young woman being raped, having her tongue and eyes torn out and her hands cut off so she couldn't identify her assailants (who were then killed, baked in a pie and served to their father) - Shakespeare at his most crowd-pleasing !!
It makes a fart in church pretty tame in my opinion - but that's high culture for you
One of the first local recitations I heard around here (never got to meet the reciter) was called 'The Farting Competition' - I can still smell it

"biased interpretations of the data thus obtained, with a dollops of self-contradiction "
Why the hell do you have to resort to unqualified personal insults all the time Pseud - are you really that insecure ?
Please stop fouling up these discussions with this unnecessary personal nonsense - it's what get threads closed, as we have learned
I haven't insuted you, please return the favour

"11 Oct 19 - 10:57 AM"
So you would send them to a club that can't tell the difference between Joe Heaney and Ed Shearan - must write that down

" If you put up some proper points against what I have actually"
You have been very unclear in what oy sauy Dave - one minute you vehemently oppose my view on folk song and demand how I define it, the next you are saying you are talking about whether the folk scene is healthyy or not
"I think you and I speak a different language."
No we don't Dave - we have different views on what constitutes folk song - I tend to take the one that has been fully accepted (up to comparatively recently) for around a century, yours appears to have been cobbled together by groups of folkies(sic) who can't provide a consensus for what they have come up with and can't even explain the terms 'traditional' or 'folk'
Jim Carroll