Note on last message: three rules, not two.

Anyway, the second category received its share of controversy. The top 5 categories for editing or pruning were:

(1) Sea Shanties.

There were just too many of them, and there was only so much you could do pulling on a rope or rowing.

(2) Early blues from the mississippi delta.

I am posting this under protest (especially knowing the name of the site). This proposal for editing aroused protest from, well, from me, but to no avail. Did we need all those recordings of the fifth version of whatever out of the back of John Lomax's car. Pure ignorance in action. I go on.

(3) Sequel songs.

Somebody mentioned a sequel to Marty Robbin's "Ballad of El Paso" ("Wicked Felina?), which was used against this genre.

(4) Feminist rewritings of famous folk songs with new words.

This started out as a complaint against "If I Were a Carpenter" as a sexist song, and degenerated after that.

(5) IRA Ballads.

These were not objected to for political reasons, just bulk.

Phew. Yours, Peter