Music can bypass our innate vetting process to touch us instantly and quite deeply on a spiritual level. Early folk songs were probably originated on drums or  other primitive instruments to accompany and amplify the words of epic poems, most of which told stories or fables to educate listeners.

The folk process changed and modified both music and words throughout the years and some of those very early songs survive in their modern form today. "All Fall Down" by the Grateful Dead was the retelling of an ancient Black Plague  folk song from the Middle Ages. Many of our blues, bluegrass, country and even pop songs have their roots in earlier songs from primarily oral traditions.

During the Vietnam War, early rock and new folk musicians such as Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, John Prine and Buffy Sainte-Marie, were able to influence large swaths of the population, bring about social awareness and  many changes in public thinking during the 60s and 70s, something the American political structure of that day seemed woefully unable to accomplish.