well, there is 'changing' a little bit because you remembered differently, or because something just sounds better to you.....and wholesale messing with a song and its basic character (and often the tune) just to have YOUR version.

One example of this is what Ed McCurdy used to do in order to copyright stuff.

I agree that one major characteristic of folk music is that it IS done by 'folk' who process it as they absorb it and pass it on, but it makes me sad to hear songs that the singer has no idea of the original 'feel' and treatment.

I am particularly grumpy when I hear Bluegrass bands, with their insatiable hunger for *more* material, speed up old standards and ruin the mood with impunity.

I guess I just hope & plead for some taste and thought about it all.