"This is generally supposed to reflect a left-wing bias, but in context it is, in truth, a celebration of the continuity of serfdom under feudalism..."

Well, yes, perhaps. Others see (and sing) it differently, and I think the point here is that Kipling is amenable to ambiguity in a way that is rarely acknowledged. The trouble with thinking about the Kipling-Bellamy settings as a corpus, as we inevitably do, is that it encourages us to see them as presenting a distinct and consistent agenda. We don't think of folk songs that way. Because we don't know of the original maker's identity or views, we tend to see a folk song through the prism of our own individual sensibility. Nowt wrong with that! My guess is that if we encountered a Kip-Bell song and thought it traditional or anonymous, the same process would take place. But tell someone "This is a song by Rudyard Kipling" and a set of expectations (or prejudices) clicks instantly into place.

Yesterday I was watching a vid of PB being interviewed by Eddie Upton around 1990. It's interesting – and perhaps germane to this discussion – that PB says here of Kipling (I'm paraphrasing from memory) "I don't by any means think all of his work was good, "and "Some of his work contains opinions that I personally detest." Detest is the word he uses here. Now that's food for thought...

In the same interview – remember, this is about 1990 – he declares himself thoroughly pessimistic about the emergence of a new generation of singers. "They'll come, but probably neither you nor I will be around to see it." He was, of course, 50% correct in that assumption: as far as I know, Eddie's still hale and active.

But here's a game everyone can play. Supoose PB was still around. Who among the new cohort of singers would he rate? John Boden may be the most obvious contender, but what would PB have made of someone who is so obviously and unrepentently in his debt stylistically and in terms of repertoire? "He's great – he reminds me of me!" Maybe it's more complicated than that...

Form an orderly queue...