Would I ever be so nickpicking to point such a thing out, Michael? After all, how (for all I know) might those changes be unconscious on your part? For sure, a word ot two might get altered unconsciously in the course of a performance, but the gist of the thing remains intact. This is a very different thing from setting out to deliberately change the words of a song because you think you're somehow making an improvement on them, as many have done with Butter & Cheese & All (though I have pinched the tune for another song altogether, which is a different issue!), or that in so doing you're particpating in The Tradition & The Folk Process, which none of us are.

Sorry - you appear to have painted yourself into corner - again.

Appearances can be deceptive, Jim - that's because there's another door - one you obviously can't see. A song is a song - as such it is the conceptual springboard of the corporeal performance. I'm not changing anything; most of traditional songs I do I've never heard sung by a traditional singer - like any other singer I'm doing it according to how I do things. That you don't like it is simply a matter of personal taste - and that it differs from revival conventions is because my musical background is a little different. So what? Again, you're looking for trouble where there isn't any.

Didn't you see my little smiley face after the comment about The Critics Group? People still talk of TCG in hushed tones - how their seriousness was feared even by God. But that was all a long before my time really, so your influence on my life, and singing, is remote to say the least. When I saw Ewan MacColl he was singing ghastly self-penned trash about Apartheid which I found as patronising as it was embarrassing, but righteous politics were never my thing anyway.

If this thread were about revival style it would be a different matter entirely - because I base my much of my musical philosophy on the evident fluity and modality of The Tradition of English Speaking Folk Song. That I prefer drones to chords and improvisation to musical arrangements is, of course, simply a matter of personal taste, but one that derives, ultimately, from the tradition.