The other day I borrowed my mom's CD of the Seeger sessions and ripped it for the computer. I wanted to listen to it carefully, and compare this tribute album to some of Pete Seeger's work and the rest of the folk music tradition.

Most of Pete Seeger's best work was seditious off-beat and non-mainstream. Somehow I knew a pop artist like Bruce Springsteen would never be able to bring the same passion to the music as the greats in folk music. That prejudice proved to be true as I listened to the CD.

Bruce Springsteen's spin on "We Shall Overcome" was particularly tacky and distasteful. It sounded more like a classic Springsteen song then folk music. It seemed like Springsteen simply was singing this song for tone deaf old people who wanted something slightly updated.

On the other hand, the song "Pay Me My Money Down" was catchy and well done as where other pieces that were more Seeger and less Springsteen. Yet, it was obvious to the listener that this was a 2005 rendition of a folk song, and missing much of the magic that made Greenwich Village folk from the sixities so special.

Springsteen is not Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, The Kingston Trio, or even Peter, Paul, and Mary of the past. The great period of folk music has come and gone, and when we want to hear good folk you'll just have to dig out the vinyl. We still have good country music, but it seems so much new music you find anywhere is without a beat and without a conscience.