When I was young, the poignancy of many folk songs used to wring my heart. I remember in the early sixties going very often to a large folk club in Edinburgh. I was seventeen and a student there. I had a thick blue, white and green stripey student scarf, and well remember sobbing into it with emotion. 'Will Ye Go, Lassie, Go?' had me in floods of tears, and some of Robert Burns' songs 'Ae Fond Kiss' for example, I found terribly poignant.
I think it's a tribute to the power of folk songs to touch the heart, not a criticism.
I also remember belting out 'Wild Rover' and other rumbustious songs with unrestrained enthusiasm and feeling as happy as Larry.
I never drank alcohol, they only offered coffee and bread-and-cheese (Imagine that today hee hee!) so it wasn't drink-induced maudlin emotion.
Even today I get choked by 'Bells of Norwich', 'Rolling Home' and 'Felimi's Boat' for example, they seem to touch a chord in my heart and my eyes fill up.
I think it's rather wonderful that music can do that.