Well, friends, I have heard some singer-songwriter products that I thought were good songs. They are best when they are clever. But good as they some times are, their most salient characteristics - sentimentality, subjectivity, overstatement, and self-pity, are the exact opposite of the traits which attract me to what used to be called "folk music."

I have nothing against singer-songwriters. Or against protest song-writers who think they are saving the world my making up songs, even if nobody much is ever going to sing them. It is just that they have nothing whatsoever to do with me, and if they identify themselves as "folk singers" they repel people who might actually add something.