You're right on the money there Soldier boy. Sure, preserve the past and learn from it but move on. Those songs were about then. We are in the here and now and need to be writing a whole new bunch of songs to inform the generations to come of the times we live in. Some folks get stuck in a time warp. They feel comfortable where they are and in some cases threatened by something new. Some folks enjoy singing the old songs, that's fine by me, I enjoy listening to them but I prefer to listen to and spend my dollars on contemporary writers of folk song. This can include modern songs about about the old days. I was in the UK some ten or twelve years ago in the county of Durham and had the pleasure of hearing two such writers perform in a small hall out in the sticks. I still play their songs after all this time. One was called John Thorpe and the other was Michael Kelly and the recording is called Tales of Derwentdale. I don't know if anyone out there knows them or if they have any other recordings but I'd sure like to find out. Anyways, that's my 2 cents worth.