Folk music lyrics are rooted in oral tradition, often chronicle humanistic history and convey a sense of community and commiseration. Folk music lyrics, while often incidentally poetic, tend to be more poignant and honest than abstract and formal. Ballads, which originated from folk tradition, are narrative songs that tell a story with a recurrent refrain.

While there have been several waves of folk music in North America, the most well known folk musicians include Bob Dylan (controversial for his switch from acoustic guitar to electric) and Joni Mitchell. Since the popularizing of folk music, the genre has stratified into subgenres, including folk rock, progressive folk, bluegrass, freak folk and more. These subgenres have further departed, spawning such music as viking metal, Celtic punk and filk. Filk, for example, is folk music with a science fiction or fantasy theme and an often satirical tone.

As you can see, what makes a song folk music or an artist a folk musician can be very hard to define. Though it is perhaps the most broadly applied genre in music, there appears to be no consensus on exactly what folk is and what folks isn't. Perhaps this is inherent in its nature – like the people that create it, defining folk music becomes increasingly difficult as it embarks on its own personal search for meaning and identity.