But it's not a dilemma - the traditional singer has always tended to sing sense - where he doesn't understand he still sings what he believes makes a sense which so esoteric as to be out of his grasp. However this doesn't last long - the next singer either makes a reinterpretation of the nonsensical bit or else it drops out or else a more creative singer reinvents the section so that it makes sense. I know Eddie Butcher reconstructed songs, I know Packie Byrne does, I know John Kennedy does and I've helped Sarah Anne O'Neill in the same task. Len Graham and Paddy Tunney both reconstruct songs from fragments or from versions - the operation has traditional snaction.

It depends on whether you are an antiquarian or a singer - it's an antiquarian's duty to leave things undisturbed - it's a singer's duty to lay the song clearly and sensibly in front of his audience - my compromise is that if I do alter, I leave a record so that a subsequent antiquarian can unravel the changes.