Some thoughts on the current topic of discussion.

There is a line – though it's sometimes a rather hazy one – between folk music and commercial music.

Folk music is made by the people, for the people. It's something we all participate in, not something that a few of us sell and the rest of us buy. As long as human beings stay human, it will survive in one form or another, because it meets a basic human need.

Commercial music is made by corporations, for the mass market. Professionals are paid to produce it, and then entrepreneurs sell it to the public, for a profit. It will survive – forever changing as the winds of fashion blow one way, then another - because for a great many people it is a commodity as useful and necessary as coffee or soap.

Of course, there is some overlap between the two forms.

Many folk performers make a little money out of what they do – enough for a couple of beers and some new guitar strings now and then. A few make a living out of it – though usually a fairly modest one. (Most could apply their talents far more profitably elsewhere.) But nobody plays folk music just for the money. They do it for love. Because these tunes, songs and dances have a beauty, a strength, and an integrity which can enrich our lives in good times, and sustain us through bad times.

Some pieces of commercial music also have this power to delight and support us. Over the years many have entered the collective consciousness, and been adopted as part of the folk heritage. This process will probably continue. But though folk music sometimes makes a profit, and though commercial music sometimes has folk qualities, I believe it's still helpful to keep using different labels for them.

So what about the alleged "death of folk music" then?

Well, every decade or so, the world of commercial music seizes upon some form of folk music. For a short while, it gets processed and marketed as a new fashion trend. Then, inevitably, it's dropped again …

BUT THIS IS NOT "THE DEATH OF FOLK MUSIC"!

Sorry for shouting, folks, but I really, really want to emphasise that point. Folk music lives! It lives in us, and through us, and it will live on as long as we believe in it – whatever the moguls of the music biz, and their cheerleaders in the media, say or, do , or think.

Wassail!