Folk music is music that has been shared around from person to person for many years. Often, we don't know who wrote the song in the first place. The words sometimes get changed over time as different people sing it in different ways.
Folk music is about things that ordinary people like and understand, like animals, or working on a railroad. Sometimes they're sad, sometimes they're funny. The songs are usually simple so they're easy to learn. "Mr Frog Went a-Courting" is an old English folk song that dates back to the 1500's. It tells a silly story about a frog who wants to marry a mouse and a bunch of other critters come to help celebrate before they all get gobbled up by something bigger (sometimes a cat, sometimes a snake, sometimes a duck).
Not all folk music is old, though. Folk music can also be a new song that somebody wrote in the STYLE of an old folk song. "The Log Driver's Waltz" is like this. It was written only about 60 years ago by a Canadian named Wade Hemsworth. Even though it's a newer song, we still call it folk music because it uses simple chords and it's about ordinary working people.
Stompin' Tom Connors was a well-known Canadian folk musician who was born right here in Saint John, New Brunswick! He wrote lots of songs about Canada and about ordinary Canadian people and the things they like.
Another folk musician from Atlantic Canada is Old Man Luedecke, a banjo player from Nova Scotia.
This is an American folk group called Peter, Paul and Mary. They were popular in the 1960s. Here they are singing Bob Dylan's song, "Blowing in the Wind."