The Undue Reverence of Folk Music Bollocks
This evening, BBC4 is holding a “Steeleye Span” night, and as part of it they are showing a concert by Maddy Prior from the recent “Electric Proms”.
The audience sit, leaning forward, notebooks poised, each song is introduced with the relevant marxist socio-political introduction. The notebooks are scribed in, as Accountants from Guildford accord the performances ratings for their authenticity. Well I am sorry to disagree, but folk music is performed to small rooms full of rat-arsed punters singing and stamping along in a more-or-less tuneful accompaniment and the Marxist interpretation of history has yet to be developed.
In similar vein, if you turn up to a céilidh and the band arrives wearing matching jackets, leave immediately.
...ravings from the Shell... 
lol Maxist socio-political introduction? ROFL Gawd ya kill me!
Clearly your husband neglected to take you to a folk club, when you were living in England. There you would have heard songs introduced thusly:
“We are now going to perform ‘The Scrimshaw Lad’ this was written in 1723 and tells of how Arthur Scrimshaw was driven from his home by the satanic mill owner Baron Gadgrind. Arthur’s wife was driven mad by having to live in a hovel on Saddleworth Moor and jumped to her death, holding her wee bairns in her arms, from the rocky outcrop of Salford Edge. Arthur’s tragedy was compounded by being forced to pay Gadgrind compensation to clean up the mess the deaths created on his favourite grouse-shooting butts. Arthur Scrimshaw eventually killed Baron Gadgrind when he ambushed the Baron on his way back from a night of debauchery at Riventhrop Hall. Arthur was convicted at Wigan Assizes in June of that year and was hung on Gibbet Hill in August. On the anniversary of Arthur’s death the miners from Stetlington Colliery would parade to the spot once occupied by the Gibbet singing songs, including this one and a troop of Morris Dancers would perform a solemn dance. Unfortunately this tradition was ended in 1984 when the evil bitch queen Margaret Thatcher used the fascist blue-shirted militia to crush the honest hard-working miners under the jack-boots of imperial tyranny. Fol-da-le- day-so……..”
I’m not actually exaggerating that much either…