Consternation
They say that electric guitars shouldn’t be let near Folk Music.
It is a bad influence.
All of those strangulated sounds, weird noises and off notes
shouldn’t be on the same stage as Mr Fender’s finest creation.
They say that drums should not be let near folk music.
They are a bad influence.
That loud banging, ear shattering volume,
shouldn’t be fronting a regular beat.
They say that young people shouldn’t be let near Folk Music.
They are a bad influence.
All of that youthful energy, inquisitiveness, and willingness to break boundaries,
shouldn’t be let near music that is only for the few.
They say that change shouldn’t be let near folk music.
All of that tradition should be kept under glass, and only some self appointed
professor of a none existent time gone by knows how to sing it, properly.
Folk Music is for everyone.
It’s how it grows, develops, changes, survives.
It is not for schools, or conservatoires, or intellectuals.
It is for singing in pubs, for playing with strangers on a night out.
The only enemies of folk music
are the people who don’t understand what it needs,
and stand back in disagreement at everything that it has become.
