Re Steeleye Span's All Round My Hat: Steeleye were imo the best of the Britpop folk-rock lot of the 70s — better than Fairport or Trees or Mr Fox or Pentangle; & Maddy Prior the best singer of the lot of them, incl McShee and Denny; and with many other of the best revival singers joining them over the years, like Martin Carthy, John Kirkpatrick, Tim Hart .... And their approach was, maugre the instumentations [but as it was folk-rock it would be begging the question to object too strongly there] uniformly respectful of the tradition.

SO - there was much puzzlement over here when they took the tune of All Around My Hat, a poignant transportation ballad of a youth whose true love has been sent away for 7 years by an unjust judge on a trumped-up theft charge, and married it to the words of a quite different, and, again imo, not nearly as good or moving, lost-love song called 'Farewell She'.

And, just to rub salt in the wound, it shot right up the charts and was played on our tv's Top Of The Pops for about 8 weeks running. Must be some sort of awful moral in there somewhere, but I can't say I feel too inclined to try to sniff it out.