Tom,
The basic difference between folk and non folk material is that with the former it is highly unlikely that you can trace the author, even when the song appears in print. The ballad sheets were very much a part of the oral process.
The singer we recorded who sold the ballads described in detail how he got them printed by reciting them over the counter at a local printers.
The best seller he could remember was 'The Blind Beggar' - author unknown, probably from the first half of 17th century London (and nearing 100 verses long in its early printed forms). This was probably the most popular song we found among Travellers. This, with most of the songs he sold, came from his parents and other Travellers and were largely from the folk repertoire - again, authors unknown.
It is of course quite likely that songs which entered the folk repertoire started their lives on the broadside presses, but the opposite was equally likely to be the case - I wouldn't like to be the one to have to sort it out.
The point in all this is that the act of folk singing at its best was creative and adaptive rather than interpretive.
For me, it leads back to ballad scholar David Buchan's (unproven but interesting) theory that there were no set texts to the ballads, rather, the singers re-composed them each time they sang them, using existing forms and commonplaces.
Why on earth 'in spite of the tender mercies of the singers'. Doesn't this imply that the best version of the song was the first one? I'm just working my way through a large collection of Irish Emigration songs, most of which the editor took from broadsides and early songsters which fed into the singing tradition here. It is fascinating to compare the often stilted and awkward printed texts to the sung versions we have recorded.
MacColl said everything I would want to say, had I the ability, at the end of 'The Song Carriers'.
"Well, there they are; the songs of our people. Some of them have been centuries in the making; some were undoubtedly born on the broadside presses. Some have the marvelous perfection of stones shaped by the sea's movement; others are as brash as a cup-final crowd.
They were made by professional bards and by unknown poets of the plough-stilts and the hand-loom.
They are tender, harsh, passionate, ironical, simple, profound; as varied indeed as the landscape of this island.
We are all indebted to the Harry Coxs and Phil Tanners, to Colm Keane and Maggie McDonagh, to Belle Stewart and Jessie Murray and all the sweet and raucous unknown singers who have helped to carry our peoples' songs across the centuries."
Jim Carroll