"The typical oral repertoire contains community songs, children's rhymes, football chants, pop songs from parents' youth/own youth, TV ad jingles, school songs, hymns, popular carols"

Indeed Steve, the oral tradition can never be declared dead until people have finally stopped singing 'Happy Birthday to You'. But... Hymns? My kids (19 and 25) don't know a single hymn and would struggle with carols beyond 'Jingle Bells' (chorus only) and just possibly the first couple of line of 'Away in a Manger'. TV ads? I could reel off quite a few ad jingles from the days of my childhood, but those will die with our generation.

It's changing all the time - what was true for you and me isn't necessarily true for our kids. Children's rhymes? Yes, still going strong, apparently. Football chants? Well, I have an interest here as a 1970s fanatic who still gets to a few games a season. I know that new chants are still being composed, and that several of the old ones are still going strong. But the singers are fewer in number and the repertoire smaller. Deafening tannoy music drowns out a lot of the attempts at singing - even at a small club like Stockport County, never mind Old Trafford. And when the Stretford End is still half empty ten minutes before kick-off (compared to the days when it was packed an hour and a half beforehand and the empty time was filled by singing) then you know things are different.

There's no reason or remote possibility that things will or should stay the same, but there's no point in trying to pretend that nothing's changed.

Incidentally, to Larry Saidman, thanks for coming back to the thread to comment, and for having started it off without an existing axe to grind.