Like the unexplained desire to name whatever non-Classical song one likes a "folksong," many people want very much to believe that a "folk process" of transmission and *creative alteration* is still going strong.

Except for a few minor genres like rugby songs and marching cadences, this is obviously not true. Media culture and copyright enforcement are inherently inimical to the "folk process." The small alterations made by singers in clubs and elsewhere are generally so trivial that they attract little interest.

Part of the reason is that the attitudes expressed in traditional songs no longer resonate. Has anybody significantly revised or extended, say, "Bonnie Bunch of Roses" in a way that would interest a 21st century "collector"? (Songs in tradition anyway were usually shortened rather than extended; improvement frequently came from abridgment.)

The "folk process" now applies more meaningfully to folk tunes, but even there most people seem to be learning them mainly from the same books and recordings and struggling to "get it right."