To me, "the reason the revival got going in the first place" was precisely because the songs spoke to us as links to the past and to the people of those other times. We sought out the old singers, and we listened intently to the songs the collectors had found for us to hold onto and to make our own. For me, the songs about "that mule" are apt to show us, overtly and between the lines, what people felt about the lives they were leading---good and bad--pro and con. Folk Songs were the passed down historical artifacts that came to us in the words of those that had lived the adventures of their lives and times and then, for posterity, turned it all into art. Was it accurate history? Some of it was. But it also contained the fantasies and extrapolations of the folks who sang to us through time. The songs illustrated how people wanted things to be, and not only how things were. As such, this was as close to finding an actual time machine as we will ever come.

That is what I always tried to show with the songs I saved and sang. If they were mostly tragic, with heavy topics, it is because, as I TRULY feel, life is basically tragic. Comedy is relief from that tragedy. ----- So I picked and chose folk tales, lore and jokelore, i.e. humor, to introduce the serious and literary songs that were so much a part of the gestalt.

Off the top o' my head, there's my two cents worth.

Art