Sean:
Read through your offering, got nothing out of it – as usual, even after hacking my way though the superfluous and pontificating verbiage.
Last word, then I'll leave you to your armchair musings.
As long as I have argued with you, your attitude has been one of total, out-of –hand dismissal of the work of collectors, researchers, ballad and folk song scholars – never argument - that would have necessitated your having taken the trouble to examine their efforts – no sign of that ever having happened.
".... awaiting my attention"
Somewhat pompously put I thought.
Harker's 'Fakesong' was published half-a-century   ago; I found it a superficially nasty attack on easy (dead) targets, but at least he made the effort of reading their ideas, writing a book and having it published rather than making snide attacks from his armchair, and at least I took the trouble to read it (twenty five years ago).
You have persistently dismiss the work of collectors, despite the fact that you have never sung nor listened a single traditional song that has not passed through the hands of a collector.
You have written of the song tradition as a figment of the imagination, or even the deliberate invention of collectors; Greig and Duncan's magnificent 8 volume collection of songs made in one single Aberdeenshire parish; Tom Munnelly's 22,000 songs recorded from Irish traditional singers, Sharp's huge harvest from the south of England and the Southern Appalachians, Mike Yates, Hugh Shield, Seamus Ennis, Hamish Henderson, James M Carpenter..... charlatans or idiots or both.
And in return you offer – what? No debate, no argument, not even an indication that you have examined their work, beyond plundering it for songs; just out-of-hand dismissal with enough insulting clichés to fill a sizeable dictionary.
"I'm researching all the time,"
It doesn't show.
"Tradition you claim to represent"
Waste of time again I know but where have I (or any collector) ever claimed to "represent the tradition" - I've reported back on what we found and put our work up for public scrutiny, nothing more.
You continue to deal in shallow, facile and insulting cliches aimed at the work of others, but when it comes to discussion of the use you make of that work.....
When I have the temerity to criticise singing that you put up for public scrutiny it becomes a "relentless onslaught" - you leap on the nearest table and scream "mouse".
Give us a break.
Like all egotists you have proved yourself more than willing and able to dish it out, but when it comes to taking it.......
If you can't take criticism, stay at home and sing in the bath; I'm sure the rubber duck will be highly entertained.
As far as I'm concerned your singing indicates you to be a somewhat hackneyed folkie – nothing more.
"Hermetical Correctness" " Imperialistic Class Condescension" "Death Eater"
Yet more nasty and misleadingly dishonest cliches to add to the dictionary
Jim Carroll