I think we can drive a wedge in here between racism and the innate terror of mental illness which underlies many of the attitudes we find large enough today. Those attitudes come with a grim fascination regarding the perils of the human condition, and with those who have plumbed those depths of such malady, like George the Third, whose psychosis inspired a film (The Madness of...) and a chamber oratorio which used some of his recorded utterances by way of libretto (the truly stunning Eight Songs for A Mad King by Peter Maxwell Davies). The old Mad Songs are a vivid expression of that fear - a glimpse into the darkness of the maludjusted mind: there but for the grace of God etc.

Racism, however, is based on a very different fear indeed... enough said, eh?

I think any performance of Mad Maudlin should consider those fears as well as as the context of the Mad Songs (and our dark fascinations with The Asylum) that come down to our own era, though in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest the real horror is The System that can define any one of us as being 'mad' simply by dint of our natural born humanity. As a song it's a fantasy piece that romanticises mental illness into a series of Grand Guignol images whilst granting the status of visionary to the maladjusted. It's not a piece of mockery as such, but as complex as it is trivial. As I say though, it's the new tune that brings it santized into the Horrible Histories realm of Folk. In its original form it's a piece of social history that might tell us a lot about attitudes to Mental Health down the years, even unto our own time...

With respect of the new tune (which I generally dislike) I love the wonky flakeyness of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Og-D0J2a1g