"Where printed texts were available they were used as a guide rather than gospel"

I've worked hard to understand where you're coming from in all this Jim. A song is either a song or it's not. Making adaptations is one thing, but unless you do a major re-write you are still singing an existing song - and you're indebted to the person who made it. If you didn't have it from somewhere you'd not have anything to adapt - so surely the maker is of more importance than any number of adapters? But somehow back there the erosion process has been elevated above the creative one, and this seems bassackwards to me.

Using a text as a guide rather than as gospel is fine and natural - but you're still using the text! How does this 'guide' use negate the existence of the text?

Of course it's hugely rewarding to compare and contrast the many versions of an old song, and of course some versions will work better, or appeal more for one reason or another, than others - and that judgement always will be both subjective and objective.

But a song is a song - and i think the most wonderful thing about the best of these old ones is that they were sufficiently well made for the essence to have survived in many versions, IN SPITE OF the tender mercies of singers through the ages.

Tom