Or is the Oral Tradition just some other crock of Folk-Orthodox purist horseshit that never existed in the first place? The medium is the message & if human culture is about anything then it's about COMMUNICATION, which is what we've dealing with at it's most fundamental level for 50,000 years. Ballads were printed, sung, sampled, reinvented, remade and this process continues - be it by word of mouth or world of letter or word of YouTube or whatever.

I first heard The Drunken Sailor sung by old sailors in my family as a child; it's a song everyone in the word knows. I've just started singing it again because it's one the finest songs ever and a joy to sing alone or in company - any company. I reckon I might sing it in a shopping mall and everyone would join in and the experience would be transcendent. Oral tradition? Dead or alive? Or is it just Folkie Purists preserving their prissy little corner as usual? We see a lot of that around here - too much to be entirely healthy.

Culture occurs at the interfaces of SUBJECTVE individuality and OBJECTIVE communality; the one thing shapes the other & so on we go, merrily forward. Keep moving there, Ladies & Gentlemen - 'tis a wonderful word to be sure!