Real Ale and Big Beards ...and that's just the women ! Seriously though, my friend Chez laughs at me because I like a bit of folk music, but here are 10 songs to demonstrate why folk music is brilliant..... 1) He Was My Brother - Simon & Garfunkel If you've ever pumped your first to Rage Against The Machine's 'Killing In The Name Of' then here is a song with the same anti-racist sentiment, a short human rights story beautifully sung. 2) Winter Song - Lindisfarne Left wing politics and religion in a minor key, wonderful. 3) The Mariner's Revenge Song - The Decemberists A long and violent tale of a scurrilous gadabout and his eventual fate in the belly of a whale, darkly humourous. 4) Reynardine - Fairport Convention From the album Liege & Lief, described as 'the most important folk album ever released'. "Her eyes were blue, her lips as red as wine", beautiful, just beautiful. 5) 1952 Vincent Black Lightning - Richard Thompson Biker boy meets red headed leather clad girl, falls in love, gets shot when commiting an armed robbery, easily Thompson's best solo song. 6) Raven Girl - Rachel Unthank & The Winterset The Unthank sisters put their lovely voices to great use on this multi layered almost pop song. 7) Blowin' In The Wind - Bob Dylan I think Dylan's got to be compulsory on a best of folk list. 8) 5 Feet High And Rising - Johnny Cash Never was lsoing your livelihood to flood water made so much fun. 9) Letter From America - The Proclaimers The Reid twins debut single does it all, wonderfully accented voices and run through with the stubborn Scots pride that colours so much of their work. 10) Not A Pretty Girl - Ani DiFranco This is folky, but with more of an Alanis Morisette attitude to it. I'm not saying these are the 10 best folk songs ever, they're just 10 folk songs that I like a lot, if you think you don't like folk try downloading them and have a listen. Or sign up for Audio Scrobbler and you can probably listen to most of them for free. Any other great folk songs I ought to have mentioned ?