The concept of communal spaces in New Zealand’s second largest city is almost entirely absent. In spite of being known as ‘the garden city’ the only place where groups of people seem to congregate are the numerous suburban malls, frequented by people living in suburban homes, driving suburban cars down suburban streets, and listening to suburban music.

As someone who regrets his few disastrous attempts at song writing it is perhaps somewhat rich to voice my opinions on this accessible but highly variable form of expression. Yet when I think more closely about why I shy away from taking my attempts at barding into the public domain (based partly on the widespread hilarity with which friends now reference them) I begin to see the crux of the matter as fairly simple- there are few subjects that have not been covered in the vast canon of folksong, and few folksongs that I think I could better.

This is not say that I should not try, or that the folk scene does not benefit from the continued contribution of new song writing in a traditional vein. Yet perhaps the highest accolade that any writer can achieve is when his or her work goes on after them, when the work takes on a greater significance than its origin. However I often worry that prevalent schools of song writing veer towards a degree of introversion and individualism that seems to disregard the true potential of the song as an art form: its communal nature.