I'm no student of folklore and have only a modest knowledge of indigenous song style. On the other hand I have a very high regard for the work of Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl whose great warmth to my family I remember after some brief meetings years ago. In other words, I am ill-informed and biased, as well as being partial to the form of the Radio Ballads. I used the word convention when listing some of the things some young people feel to be obstacles deliberately, and probably because I was too nervous, in this context, to use the word tradition, but I have had mixed feelings about this very thing for some time. In his commentary on the Radio Ballads, Laurence Aston reminds us that soon after On The Edge and in the wake of the Beatles' first number one hit, young people were to be the focus of everyone's attention all over the world.
Young voices are louder in our world than they have ever been before.
The institutions which interact with the young reflect this too. Classrooms are generally arranged so that students sit facing each other, encouraging the sharing of ideas rather than front facing to receive them. In my own work there is a constant request from decision makers for the opinion of young people. The reality is, though, that they are neither dated nor obsolete. The key is in really listening and hearing what young people are really saying .