http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqtlcHiSHTE
It's an awful thing that all the folk I know is modern folk; my concept of a genre rooted firmly in the past is, itself, rooted firmly in the present. I know about old folk: Dylan and Wainwright and such; I also know modern folk, like The Decemberists, Andrew Bird, Band Of Horses, Bon Iver, even R.E.M.
What defines this genre? It's about nature and its effect on the human psyche: how rural living is, what it's like to live subject to the seasons; a past-oriented culture, rather than the present, hedonistic suburban culture or the modern, forward-facing industrial culture. It's about and set in the country; it uses naturalistic imagery, but it is nostalgic, a return to the past. As such, 60s folk has no greater claim; after all, real folk music is indigenous. The music of my great-great-grandparents, Polish folk songs and shanties and such. Bob Dylan has no more claim to it than Bon Iver.
So why am I ashamed?
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