Folk is ‘society-driven’ music but do the people who are part and parcel of it react in a society-driven way? Are they running out of step with the modern world or right in line with its thinking? Perhaps ‘folk’ folk are running in the same direction but on a slightly less terminally destructive path – who knows?

One thing though is vital – the right of musicians to sing, play and say what’s in their heads. Society tolerates the odd eccentric but rejects any movement that questions too much. That’s why totalitarian societies have their folk music underground – along with their artists, poets, journalists and opposition.

Totalitarianism tries to make folk music stop (among almost everything else). Beware of governments that try to start with the artists and don’t imagine for a second that if our government could get away with it they wouldn’t do it.