Yes, it'll come round, some time, some way. The puzzle is why it why it died away.

This'll annoy some people, but in a sense rap has demonstrated that there is still an appetite for a type of verse that is grounded in storytelling and real events. I wouldn't take the parallel much further, but maybe it's a precursor of something better.

And, in the folk world, the idea that we are still entitled to listen to and to write ballads and monologues , and songs telling stories and so forth has never died.