Folk song is what folk club organisers are prepared to let their visitors and guests sing. I vote with my feet when it comes to clubs that let 20 singer-songwriters each get up and regale us with their recently written in the bath version of 'My girlfriend's gone and left me and I feel so bad/want to slit my wrists/get drunk again...etc' Many club organisers see themselves as running a social service for their community - allowing anyone who has something to perform, no matter how dreadful, to get up and bore the captive audience. The audience is usually too polite to catcall or show their disapproval. I think clubs should be rather more selective in what is performed. When I was involved in the running of a sing-around club in Manchester UK we were quite clear on our policy. Otherwise we would have been a place where poems, home-penned songs, blues , jazz and monologues were performed. I think it is about time that other venues , catering for such diverse art forms as listed above were brought into being, to free up the folk clubs for those of us who really want to hear our traditional music.