Great song there from Harvey there!

I'm not sure that it is possible to draw a clear line between a song that tells a story that illuminates or explains our lives, and one that talks about the troubles in the life of the person making the song. That could imply that in order to make a song about trouble, and to do it in a way that was in the tradition, you couldn't have experienced it yourself, and that is clearly absurd.

As a rule of thumb, I think that the traditional way to respond to public troubles has been to produce new songs, but when it comes to finding ways of dealing with personal troubles the tendency has been more to rework existing songs and reassemble fragments of songs.

But when it comes to rules of thumb I'm all fingers. The crucial thing with any song is, is it a good song, and is the singer singing it in a way that does it justice. And of course there is no reason or why anybody should feel that they should only sing or listen to "folk songs". There are plenty of great songs that aren't "folk songs"

For example, Harvey's song there.