The things that inspire an artist/songwriter to create are what they are. You're not going to dictate it or steer it. I personally have no problem with the kinds of issues that are the focus of folk songs of late. There in fact is a 'less fortunate' element in all of us, and I feel the music speaks to this experience of the common man.

It is a talent, not an annointing.

Some people bowl really well, some can roll their tongues, and some very unfortunate few are cursed with the ability to write and perform their own music. Poor devils.

Now, if you will all join me for a rousing rendition of "The Skeletons of Quito"...

What I love about folk music is its breadth - from Ani DiFranco to Utah Phillips, silly to country to Klezmer, and antiwar polemic to paeans to flower gardens and washing the morning's dishes as a sacred act....
Whether folk "should" be more "political" is a question that can only be answered if we can answer definitively what "political" really is... how political is the personal, anyway?

I have to agree with both of the previous comments. I have found that in my experience trying to manufacture a song to make a point makes for a terrible song. If I am inspired with words that tell the story that in turn makes the point, then I have something worth listening to. There are great writers out there that speak of social issues from first hand experience and are directly inspired to talk about it, Bruce Cockburn comes immediately to mind, but it is a very personal endeavor and I have always had my inspirations from my personal experiences, and when it happens, it happens.

I don't believe Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan changed Folk Music forever. They simply took it in a direction for a while. Folk Music is much more than just singing about the poor, downtrodden or unions. It should, and does, encompass all aspects of the human condition. (Human condition - I can't believe I just said human condition).

Wow, what a great topic.
I feel that music that addresses universal truths, offers universal answers to societies ills. Though I have been brought to tears by songs about a specific subject matter, it is artists such as Peter Mayer and Ruthie Foster (to name a few) that inspire me. Hopefully that inspiration will bear fruit. I also feel that it IS an anointing rather than talent- I think we all know artists that have that certain ‘something’ that separates them from the rest of the crowd

It's all about balance. Awareness of issues through various media is a good thing. It's good to have issues come forth in lyrics and song. There are great examples throughout the last fifty years. However, we shouldn't overly focus on issues of conflict and pain be it out in the world or in our hearts. Joy is a great healer and is overlooked as a resource of personal power. If we over-focus on conflict, we run the risk of letting fear take too much of our energy. In my opinion issue awareness is important, but it is extremely important for a person to balanced in their approach to dealing with issues both internal and external. Let joy lead the way in your thoughts and feelings, not fear. Stay aware of issues, but don't let fear become a motivation in your life. To remain joyful is to be personally powerful.

May I remind you that Woody Guthrie also wrote silly songs? So did his son Arlo. Being topical is great. But listening to 'folk music' does not always have to engender being beaten repeatedly about the state of the world. Awareness of issues is not a bad thing, but it's a bit like the saying "All work and no play..." I think that makes the songs about social responsibility even more powerful, and endows 'folk' music with the ability to be well-rounded.

lynn oatman

hi folks . my feelings are folk music like all other forms of music or indeed painting,poetry,etc are humans ways of expressing their or our feelings of emotion, yes there are folk songs that are sad and dreary or seem that way cause they support people who are in aless fortunate postion than ourselves ,but in my view that is to be applauded,for in a more and more increasing mind thy self society,man must really help inall ways and folk music is one of them,can i also just say not all folk music is dreary it covers many aspects of life .and some can be quite funny try listening to my great favorite harry chapins song- odd job man , as someone once said IF MUSIC BE THE FOOD OF LIFE _PLAY ON MY FRIEND PLAY ON take care folks

Good songs often come from strong feelings. Sometimes they're about love, or losing love, or missing home and loved ones - things all of us have felt strongly about at one time or another. It's true that great songs have also been written about social issues and the plight of the downtrodden, but I feel it's wrong to say folk songs MUST be about social issues. Great "folk" songs from Greensleeves to Oh, Susannah to Four Strong Winds have been about things other than social issues. And, all too often, social issue songs are strident, preachy and short-lived.

I'm not sure I even agree that folk music mainly exists to illuminate the struggles of the common man. Yes, that element is there, and it feels very much worth nurturing and protecting, but still. I know there's a lot more to traditional folk music than the Child Ballads, but they have always represented a pretty good cross-section to me. If any one theme predominates there, I would have to say it's kind of a preoccupation with the sex lives of the ruling class. Look at the plotlines of Matty Groves, The Four Marys, Lady Ellender and the Brown Girl, Lord Arlen, and on and on. They could be fairly compared to today's tabloids and celebrity-obsessed TV, actually. Plus ca change….I'm just sayin'.

Matty Groves rocks. Gotta love the happy ending.

I think there is a group of people - that first heard folk music in colleges and coffee houses way before Dylan went electric - that connects the protest songs of Seeger and Guthrie with their own experiences in the 50s and 60s. Folk music is more than a personal soundtrack to them, it is the anthem for their generation. The music played an important role in fighting for the cause (whatever it was). Now, there are new fights to fight and they want someone to find new songs to go with them. Steve Earle is the only guy I can think of right now who released an album entirely of protest songs in response to the election and the war in Iraq.

The reason Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie wrote and sang songs about Socialist issues is because they were right in the middle of the Socialist movement that spanned a good part of the 20th Century. It was their personal involvement in the movement that gave them their inspiration. Jimmie Rogers was a hobo, and guess what? He sang about hobos. Go figure. Bob Dylan was, in his youth, a frenetic bundle of energy that absorbed everything around him and wrote furiously about it all almost as fast as the words hit him. He was surrounded by all of the earlier Socialist influence, as well as other emerging events of his youth. I read somewhere (maybe a liner note on an album) that he had copywritten 2500 songs by the time he was 25. I don't know how accurate that number is, but no one can deny that there was an immense body of work that he cranked out back then. His subjects cover so many things I would not know where to begin the list. My point here is that if you are affected enough about it to be inspired, then it will come out. If you live a life of a social activist and you are a writer, then it will come out in your writing. Perhaps those who feel this compulsion are merely calling others to a life of activism. There is nothing wrong in that, but not all musicians will answer the call. However, that does not diminish their works merely because they are pulled in other directions in their lives. There is a place for all of it.

Steve Earle is a force unto himself, all right. He definitely writes from the heart, and he has had some spectacular successes (and failures) that have had pretty wide impact. I just hope he doesn't burn himself out.

How I love this thread, and also this site. I can identify very strongly with the post about the people who grew up with Seeger and Guthrie songs and were informed, or imprinted by them. So much that they want to see more of today's folk singers take on some of the same tasks that those guys did. So do I, and hats off to Steve Earle. His songs are awesome, and so is he for doing them, and for taking the heat for them.
I very much agree that topical songs can and way too often do veer into preachy, strident territory. Mine don't. That often. Anymore. At least the next one won't. But there is something about these times that asks for a more nuanced tone than the old Which Side Are You On songs. As polarized as we supposedly are these days, I think there�s a widely held sensibility in the air that the folks on the other side have earned their viewpoint too. No matter how much it clashes with my own. And that some of the biggest issues are more complicated than you can intelligently set to punchy verses and a sing-along, chorus. Not saying it can't be done. Again, hats off to Steve Earle. And, God help me, Eminem. I just think it's getting harder to use songs to illuminate an issue these days, at least to do it well. I'm not as prolific as I was in the past, and good ideas are hard to come by. And even if it's a really good song, one that's "ripped from the headlines" will nearly always have a much shorter shelf life than a love song, or an issues song that's about more static, ongoing conditions. It's just as hard to write, but I can only sing it for a fraction as long.
I have scrapped several issues songs because the more passionately I agreed with myself, the bossier the songs seemed. Who am I to sing other people what they ought to think and do? Is anybody out there going to scrap their SUV or tell their high school kid's Army recruiter to sod off just because of a song they heard suggesting they should? I get offended when a singer tries to do that to me. It feels manipulative and prompts me to resist, even if I were inclined to agree with the sentiment behind it.
Topical songwriting today feels like getting into a political argument -- nothing you can say will make any difference in the other guy's opinion. The only political conversations that feel worthwhile anymore are the ones where you try to find out what somebody thinks and why -- and they want to find out the same about you, without anyone attempting to change each other's mind. It's a challenge, but that might point up a possibility for how to treat issues as a songwriter. I think of that Bruce Robison song about the doomed boy "two days past eighteen, waiting for the bus in his Army greens" -- a slice of life on a small, human scale, drawing tears from people of very different persuasions.

I do think that folk music bears a special responsibility to give hope to the hopeless and voice to the voiceless, because more than any other art, folk music appeals to our most noble, empathic and humane selves. Frank Sinatra and Ethel Merman were not sung on the picket lines, but Malvina Reynolds and the Almanac Singers sure were. To me, perhaps the best example of what folk music is all about was captured by Woody Guthrie:

"I am out to sing songs that will prove to you
that this is your world
and that if it has hit you pretty hard
and knocked you for a dozen loops,
no matter how hard it's run you down,
and rolled over you,
no matter what color, what size you are,
how you are built; I am out to sing the songs
that will make you take pride in yourself
and in your work. "

Lots of songs from different genres can give you moon, June and spoon; but only folk music can lift you out of the gutter when the world spits on you, hands down. And so I'm proud to be a card carrying folkie. Live folkie, or die!

Should folk music make a difference? Well, I suppose that depends on what difference you want it to make. There are some members here who couldn't tell a guitar chord from a cord of firewood, but that's perfectly OK. They listen and hopefully enjoy what they hear, are moved by it, and offer thier support. Maybe the songs get them to thinking. Maybe it moves them in such a way they get in touch with themselves again, or even for the first time.

Then there's us singer/songwriters who perhaps litsten a bit more critically. As one of this group, I wish I could tell you where my songs come from. The creative process isn't a pretty one for me, and even worse for those around me. About that, I'll just say I'm on some other planet.

I like to think I write songs that make a difference, on some emotional level to the listener(s) and they are moved in some way(besides out the door). My songs are works of fiction and autobiographical, and you'll hear from me which is which. I don't always explain my songs, or say things like, "I wrote this song when," or "this is a song about..... " I like to think the audience is smart enough to figure it out for themselves, and equally important, that they have thier own experience within the song. What that expereince is, I minght never learn. It could be personal whether for a moment or for longer.

I just hope they enjoy the show.

I knew I should of proofed it before I clicked. I meant to say, you'll NEVER hear if from me which is a wor of fiction or which is autobiographical.

Yeah, Steve Earle writes some good ones, but for topical songs with a sense of humor AND a bite, check out John McCutcheon's Hail to the Chief.

Wonderful comments on this thread. I knew there would be when I saw the "hook" dangling in Ann's initial post on this topic.
Isn't the word "folk" just another term for "people"? Folk music is music about people, in one aspect of life, or another. I've said it before in comments about folk musicians, and their fans, that I think that these people have something within wired a little differently than the masses who find it difficult to enjoy folk music. Maybe it is the ability to emphasise with the rest of our kind a little more intensely? Or, maybe this is a result generated by a more acute sense of awareness of what is happening around us? Yes, these are questions, not answers.
But, how often have we found ourselves with a tear inching down our cheek, or realize that we have just sung, out loud, for the ump-teenth time, and with just as much anger, or fervor, some old Seeger standard? You don't respond like that unless what triggers it is DEEP in your psyche! It became automatic at some point in our lives. Was it inate, or was it "triggered"? I'd like to think it can be triggered, as that give the chance to "turn on" a lot of emotion that can be directed towards resolving social unfairness, etc.

I always thought of folk music as just being about life whether political or not.Folk songs of lost love are enjoyed by all but not neccessarily experienced by all.Music is from by both the mind and heart although sometimes it's hard to tell who rules.It's true it raises your conscience to all that's around you both good and bad.

This thread is forcing some of my synapses to fire or something. I hadn't really given much thought to the possibility that folk performers, and folk fans, might actually be wired a little differently than folks in generally, more empathetic. What a wonderful working hypothesis, and wow, does that explain a lot. For one thing, folk audiences will laught at anything that's clearly meant to be funny, even if it's pretty feeble. Probably out of empathy for the performer's nervousness. And will sing along just about any time the performer wants them to. And will even do hand gestures on request. Who else is that nice???

I've had Country fans do hand gestures...but I didn't request them...and they were singing along, but with different lyrics, and to different tunes. No wait! That was the jukebox. Had somebody turn one on right in the middle of a set once at the Rig Six Club in Oklahoma. Subtle.

I think empathy has a lot to do with folk listeners and performers. We don't like the "club scene" because so many people get hurt by it. There are some bars I've played that were actually fun, but not many.

The sheer variety of songs that Folk Alley plays, from traditional folk to Celtic to bluegrass to the particularly unique “El Aagua De La Vida” by Salsa Celtica that I heard today leads me to believe that music does not need to “carry the torch of the downtrodden” to be considered folk music, since I consider all of these varieties to be folk.

Joan Kennedy’s comments above (“The only political conversations that feel worthwhile anymore are the ones where you try to find out what somebody thinks and why.”) personally reverberated with me since they perfectly articulated some thoughts that I have been rolling around in my head for a while. Not only that, but they made a great connection to the musical world. Thanks Joan!

The idea of empathy, I think, hits the nail pretty squarely on the head. If someone asks me what I mean by folk music, and I get the sense that I have one sentence max, I typically respond with “whatever makes you want to dance.” But it’s broader than that-it’s music that gets you to respond in any way at all, music that engages you-a critical thing, when you think about it.

And I've enjoyed musicians who just shut up and show skill. It's still folk without saying, 'Oh, I hate the whiteman'; it might need saying, but ya still got to play it right.

While I appreciate the empathy and understand the good intentions, I think the idea that we're feeling for the 'down-trodden', who are always other people, has a bit of arrogance and elitism in it. I don't belive that we-- Americans or Westerners-- are really any 'better-off' overall than most other people (with some obvious exceptions). What we gain in material goods and education and medical care, we lose in a bankrupt spiritual life and weakening sense of community. The point here is that to me, everyone is down-trodden at times, to some degree, and folk music speaks to this, and that's why I love it. It's a great leveler-- there are no privileged characters.

Folk music must be an open outlet for espression of feelings and thoughts -- and events. Of course, as all efforts, an intention in necessary.

That purpose may be to shine a light on sad or inhumane conditions in hope of change. That purpose may be to tell a story of good (or bad) deeds. Or that purpose may be simply to share feelings.

Remember that folk music can be a warm and cozy place to express feelings and desires . . . from sharing experiences with good friend, or a true love, to the hope seeing peace and love lighten the load of the world. So, Folk has a duty to take us somewhere, and that territory holds many choices.

Folk can simply show us just how good it is to sing, now, together for the sheer purpose of singing.

T.R. Ritchie's song, "Somewhere to Begin" lyrics come to mind. Check out the lyrics on his site:

"A song, love, a dream . . . is somewhere to begin."

Tricia Hanagan
Portland, OR

I see your point, Tony -- it's true that we are all downtrodden at times. But that does not mean that there aren't clearly people -- individuals and groups -- who are far less privileged economically, physically, politically, and in other ways, mostly due to social and political structures over which they have no contorl, and deserve a voice in this world, deserve to be heard, and that is where folk music comes in. To deny that there are not "haves" and "have nots" in this world is disengenuous. This doesn't mean that all of us, at one time or another, don't have hard times. Of course we do. But you cannot compare waiting in traffic or not getting an annual raise or having your computer go bonkers or breaking up with your girlfriend to some desperately poor child growing up in South Africa whose parents and nearly all other loved ones have died of AIDs due to "unavailable" (I would say denial) of basic medical care.

I am hungry -- I missed my dinner -- is a very different reality than living in Auschwitz.

That joke, What do you call a folksinger who just broke up with his girlfriend? Homeless! …is no joke. Most of the poor people I've known well have been full-time musicians, the singer-songwriters being the poorest. The poorest of those are the folk singers, and there's not another group of adults I know who is as likely to lack health insurance while simultaneously being plagued with substance abuse issues. The AIDS risk is not a hypothetical one. It's always seemed to me that most of these smart, charming, talented people could have had stable, contented lives if they'd gone into anything else at all, but somehow people think these souls should be grateful to be off the office-job hamster wheel and onstage, any stage, sometimes with a single-digit number of people in the audience after a three-hour drive. I think after you've made the staggering chain of sacrifices it takes to be able to keep writing, gigging, touring and recording, you've earned the creds to identify with the downtrodden and the right to create songs about absolutely anything that your inspiration takes you to.

When I was in high school in the 60's I really got into folk music both traditional and commercial artists.
The songs were great to listen to, but more importantly they could be sung. Alot of songs were written in protest to the Viet Nam War and to promote the civil rights movement. I do believe those songs did make a difference. All these songs old and new fell under the umbrella of "folk music". Today there are many wrongs being done, especially in Iraq. It would be great if the new breed of folk singer/songwriters would carry on the tradition Seeger, Guthrie, Paxton,Peter, Paul and Mary, etc. Some great topics could be: corporate greed, the Sudan, Aids, South Africa and the eroding of our civil rights in the name of security. There are so many topics just waiting for a protest song.

Can anyone out there make a great protest wong out of a White Paper? A rider to a bill? These are horrendous problems massively resistant to the resolution they cry out for. If I had a great idea about how to solve any of these problems I think I'd be trying to work the public policy end.

I think it was the draft, more than the Vietnam war itself, that made it such an an attractor of protest songs. I haven't heard many songs yet protesting the back-door draft we've got right now, possibly because of how hard it would be to end it without, you know, re-opening the front door.

The issue of 'haves and have-nots' refers primarily to economics. In this respect Americans and Westerners are indeed fortunate. But we are preoccupied with the material. The world I group up in, during the 50's and 60's-- was much 'richer'-- in the strength of community, the quality of interactions between people, the joy in the personal lives of each person. We are losing something, as people become ever more obsessed with obtaining 'things', doing more and more, working harder and harder. Technology and things are taking over our lives and our spirits. I have never seen so many alienated, depressed, hollow people. This is the sense in which I believe that many, perhaps most people are 'down-trodden', at some time, in some important way. These are themes of Folk music. Not to recognize the truly less fortunate is disingenuous, as observed. But the view that we are much better-off in some respects can lead to feeling better-off in all respects, and to feeling 'better'. We also need to recognize the price we have paid for our economic and technological success.

Great post, Tony! The work-buy-borrow pressure is truly taking over our lives. How much of this would we fix by kicking our TVs to the curb?

I'm sure there was a lot about the 50s and 60s that would be great to work back to. But that's also when black people were depressed because of tightly constricted life options, before public accommodation laws, voting rights, equal employment opportunity, better access to all universities, fair housing, and the scrapping of miscegenation laws. Women were depressed because reproductive freedom was a joke, housewives were indeed desperate, and four years of college would steer few of them anywhere but into teaching, nursing or library science. (Not that there's anything wrong with those callings, they're all better jobs now than they were then.) Millions of men were depressed because they'd suffered through World War II or Korea and we didn't know beans about PTSD.

Now we're all depressed because if our lives aren't going great it must be our own fault. As a whole I'd rather live now than then. At least we have antidepressants now!

No, it doesn't have to make a difference, but for those of us who are impacted, it can be a powerful force for positive change. Writers and singers of great folk music, Woody for example, will continue to provide a positive influence far into the future.

Folk Music to me is a reflection on all the emotions we feel..all the experiences we go through. It is a bout joy and sadness about life and death. I would recommend a British folk singer ..Vin Garbutt ..who encompass all these emotions. I would dearly appreciate some of his music played on Folk Alley.

I'm probably one of those people who wouldn't recognize a musical cord from a cord of wood. No talent in that direction, although I wish I did. I'm part of that 50's and 60's group who remembers the coffee houses and protest songs, remembering those days and the music with fondness. I also cherish my Celtic roots, so enjoy music telling of Celtic history. Oh yes, and the folk music brought to America by those early immigrants and blended with the forging of a new life in a new nation. I've also spent 13 years living in Africa, where I saw wars, useless wars, face to face and the harsh reality of real human suffering. Folk music, for me, is the story of humanity and social upheaval in man's history. It's also those funny little songs that make me laugh. Does folk music HAVE to make a difference? Maybe not, that's the choice of the artist. There are many facets, just as there are many who listen to the music. I'm just one of those people who will listen to songs that carry a social message and depend upon our folk singers to carry that torch. Where else would I be able to look?

I spent some time in Mexico and points south, and was always amazed at the courage of the folk singers there. In countries where you can literally be "disappeared" for speaking out, they continue to do so. Seems odd that our priorities are so different up here in the States, where so many writers and performers are more concerned with demographics than democracy.

Money, or the forlorn hope of money, has killed a lot of great music.

I agree that folk music should move people to activism if that is the artist wishes, and if the artist has the capabilities to write a song well. But, I think ALL music is best when it moves you. A song doesn't have to be sung on a picket line to be motivational. I was just as motivated by "Union Maid" as I was by "High Hopes", (True, motivated to do different things, but both were worthy endeavors.)

I think that there are two facets here: one is whether folk music is by its very nature bound up with advocacy for the poor and disenfranchised; the other is whether individual songwriters and performers wish to become involved in that tradition. Many don't, and that's fine. Good music is good music, and most people would value that. But that is a different matter than whether folk music as a genre has special qualities that uniquely position it as a voice for the poor. I would argue that the historically, folk music has always been that voice. And we need folk music to stick around, to be that voice, or we are all lost.

I thought Gangsta Rap was the voice of the poor now. Or was that last week?

Jim, I hope you're being facetious, I truly do.

A point made with humor is a point nonetheless. I'm sitting here watching the American Idol DC auditions, with my laptop on my knee. American taste, rich and poor, is all about commercial music, rap pushing further and further into the mainstream.

Our niche is so, so rarified. Regarding the poor, we can write about them, we can sing for them. If they're in school or institutionalized we can even make them sit through it. We just can't make them like it.

Being poor in the country, on our own land, was far different from being poor in today's crumbling cities. Rap speaks to that (sometimes) but mostly it is about money, sex, image, and how desperately the artist wants all three. Bad enough to kill for, lie for, bully and die for.

THAT is the voice of today's poor. Urgent desire, slickly packaged and coming soon to a street corner near you.

...and that is why we desperately need folk music. Because, as was stated, the world of mass marketing has taken over music (and everything else), with the message that money, sex and image defines a person's worth. We are all affected by that message, and need folk music as a bulwark against that message, but the have-nots need that to hear folk music's message the most. And this is not condescending. On the contrary, it's message that says that we all have a place at the table, regardless of your heritage, circumstance, self-destructive mistakes, etc. etc. etc. The rich have a place at the table, the poor need to hear that there is a place for them. The commercial world, I believe, does not want them to hear that message. It wants them to completely self-destruct with the rap message and all that it entails. And then the have-nots will not be a problem, because they won't exist while the tobacco companies and the distillers and the Nike and the rap moguls reap huge profits.

Jim and Penny....you are both absolutely right!

To Joan and others who are in folk music-- I would say that if more people listened to folk music, many would like it. But they don't have the exposure. It's not sizzly, flamboyant, sexy, etc. all of which seems to be required for commercial success. But you should take great satisfaction in producing a genre which is superior artistically and creatively, I feel, to most of what is out there today.

Hey, I am too sizzly and sexy!

Oh, wait a minute, I was thinking about steak. Steak is sizzly and sexy.

The times, they are a chan....ging.
Oops, they already did! How come it doesn't feel right?

Jim - you crack me up!

You guys are too much! Thanks for the fun! And the next time I'm having a sizzling steak and a good merlot, I'll think of you!

GANGSTA MUSIC IS OF POOR BLACKS FOLK MUSIC OF POOR WHITES AND COUNTRY MUSIC OF POOR SOULS WHO DONT KNOW ANY BETTER ONLY KIDDIN PEOPLE THOUGHT ID LIGHTEN UP THE CONVERSATION A LITTLE HAHA ALL MUSIC IS FOR ALL PEOPLE TAKE WHAY U NEEED AND LEAVE THE RESY FOR OTHERS

if music be the food of protest, action and challenge..we must be anorexic!

if it's good music...it is honorable nusic...relax

Don't know if anyone is still reading this or not but.......
the purpose of music is to entertain us. Sometimes a dual purpose exists, entertain and move, or educate or whatever. The three most important songs to me are Give yourself to Love, it's a hard life and Biko. two are folk and one is not.

Ive been to may fests where I have been equaly entertained/moved by the peace love and granola set as well as the silly songs/love songs. It is a personal thing during a personal moment.