Nevertheless, to just play old-time folk music was regarded as perpetuating the already stagnant state of the form, so punks re-invented it as “rogue folk”, or rebelled against its conventions with “anti-folk”. As early as 1976, punk poets like Patti Smith gave notice that there was life in the old dog yet, but only if it was injected with vitality and verve seemingly long lost. Nevertheless, from folk’s rich history, some punks of the day glimpsed kindred spirits, as well as stylistic components and an ethos not dissimilar from their own. Didn’t folk tackle socio-political concerns of the day-including the working class-from a perspective supporting the underdogs? Wasn’t folk, as the term delineates, the people’s music, its songs crafted for communitarian purposes and for uniting the subjugated in solidarity against oppressive forces? And didn’t folk have a DIY aesthetic, its expressions dependent upon few raw materials (often just a guitar), and driven by one’s creativity and self-sufficiency? Three chords and the truth? Folk had them. An independent superstructure of record companies, live venues, and marketing outlets? Folk had them, too.
Folk music, at the epicenter of youth musical rebellion in the 1960s, was perceived as a spent force by the late 70s, a sedentary style’ played solely by aging Dylan fans and kids forced by their parents to take acoustic guitar lessons. The form that once provided the soundtrack to trade unions and civil rights marches was now deemed defanged and retrograde. Thus, when punk, exhausted from its first throes of three-chord thrashing, went seeking past genres with which to commingle, folk-at first glance-appeared to be an unappealing partner.