And Henry Martin itself was a fragment of Andrew Barton, which was 80-odd verses long.

Yes, it was all too brief - I could have listened to him just talking about the records for much longer (during "Les Trois Cloches" I was willing him to mention Tony Rose, but no).

The 'personal statement' thing is interesting - the Richard Thompson song sung by Norma about the guy who claimed to be Joseph Locke was as close as it came, and that had a couple of levels of ventriloquism built into it. It's a style of writing you don't get much in traditional songs - impersonal setups are much more common ("as I was out walking I heard a girl crying, then a young man came up to her and *he* said...")