...being a folk singer doesn't mean what it used to. To be blunt, most so-called "folksingers" aren't folk singers at all. Playing acoustic guitar and mumbling into a microphone deosn't make it folk music anymore than wearing a cowboy hat makes it country music. People in this world are loosing their conceptions of folk identity as folk cultures become assimilated into a capitalist pop-culture.

Folk music is music that belongs to a people- not a record company. a folk singer does not represent the efforst of one individual, proffesional musician, but represents a collective voice which had changed and evolved as it's ideas have been passed down and around for generations- each new folk singer, adapting the verse and melody to fit new causes, new struggles. Folk songs do not have a fixed form- every time you hear them they are different. Alfok singer is any person who can make music,- singing hollers on the chain gang, singing "John Henry" on the railroad, singing "this Land is Your Land" in the union halls, singing while they wash dishes, sit on the porch, drive in a car- anywhere! anybody! Folk music is the expression of people in their day to day lives-dealing with real experiences.

As Marx tells us, it is the tendency of capitalism to commodify everything. As soon as music could be recorded, it be came commodified. Soon folk music found a profitable market in the record industry. As these authentic forms of cultural expression and resistance became increasingly under the control of the music industry, the music industry became the source of legitimation for all music- that is, music no longer belonged to everybody, but only to proffesional musicians who could market theri skills. This was an essentially disempowering development. Music also became private property- like everything else under capitalism- that is, music belonged to proffesionals and companies - nobody else could sing these songs in performance settings. The song became fixed in format as a "sound recording". Before the music industry, using text and melody from other songs was a healthy, creative aspect of the evolution of folk music. Now it's called stealing.

We have been naturalized into accepting this authoritarianism, this commodification, and this diesempowerment. But this does not mean that we lack the tools to resist this assault on our counter-culture. Capitalism has created the tools and conditions which will eventualy lead to it's downfall. With modern information technology we have the cpacity to spread and steal ideas uder the noses of the music industry. It is up to us at this juncture, to create an alternative music- and an alternative music culture. To quote Jim Page, "Take our culture back!" And to paraphrase Jerry Rubin: Steal this Song.