Here follows my contribution to The Electric Muse - the story of folk into rock (Eyre Methuen, 1975), edited by Dave Laing, with contributions also from Laing, the late Robert Shelton and Robin Denselow of the BBC and The Guardian. It attracted little attention when the book was published, and when the book was published in Germany, this section was completely omitted. On the other hand, in an article in Folk Review, Peter Bellamy praised it as the only section worth reading (though he also scoffed at my suggestion on the pipe-and-tabor, The pipe was, as we have seen, a familiar male sexual symbol, but then the drum is a female symbol, so perhaps the two played together became a mimetic sex act  as were many of the dances for which it provided the accompaniment, especially the Morris. His scorn was well-merited, since there is much in the essay which is ill-digested syncretism, lumping together folk customs from different cultures and periods in history as if they were interlinked. A similar weakness is at the root of another book, Singers of an Empty Day  last sacraments for the superstars (Kahn & Averill, 1971) which attempts to prove that dead rock idols were sacrificial victims. I have often thought of writing a rebuttal of the ideas propagated in these two books, but current pressures have always prevented me. However, what follows does address some of the issues raised by Dave Harker, Georgina Boyes and Mike Brocken, demonstrating that pioneers of the revival were not so blind to its relationship with popular culture as they suggest. (Brief updating comments have been inserted in the text).