"if I learned "Little Musgrave" from my father, and he learned it from his father I am a traditional singer. If I learned it fron a book last week I am a traditionalist singer. It is the same song and the same singer, who will be able to tell the difference?"

No-one, purely on the basis of listening to you. But Ray started this thread because he wanted to know what to call himself, as a singer of traditional songs who maintains a distinction between what he does (very well, as it happens) and what singers like Walter Pardon and Cyril Poacher, who learned songs through their families or local communities, did. Like Ray, I think that's a useful distinction to make, although personally I'm not too bothered about what label I might stick on myself. 'Tradition Bearer' isn't bad, though perhaps a bit grandiose; 'Traditionalist' is a decent attempt at a compromise.

Jim wrote (re football chants): "At their most developed they are little more than crude parodies of something else, at their most common they are little more than chants. They are deserving of a study on their own, but as a custom rather than as part of the song tradition."

All of that is true. However, if we look at the world around us (this country, at least) for evidence of continuing singing traditions, then football chants are a living, breathing example. So too are playground rhymes. They are not 'part of the song tradition' that includes all those old ballads and 18th century lyrical songs (which is largely gone now as a living tradition), but they are a singing tradition. That's all I was trying to say.