Apart from some functionality, such as helping to keep a steady rhythm while working together and doing so by singing, as in sea chanteys or track lining songs, why does one sing or listen to songs? Folk songs, any kind of songs?

To entertain and to be entertained!

The idea that folk songs should not be entertaining or that entertainers should not sing folk songs sounds like something out of the Puritan colonies, Salem witch trials, that sort of thing. If you enjoy eating, if you enjoy sex, if you enjoy singing or listening to someone sing, you're going straight to Hell!!

Is singing to entertain yourself when you are alone going to make you go blind or grow hair on the palms of your hands?

PFUI!!

Don Firth