Small correction to my 15 Jan 18 - 06:46 PM post:
I omitted a few words when I re-typed my lost post. I meant to say
"I have loved folk songs for most of my life ..."

Jim
> people can't even bring themselves around to considering the possibility that working people produced songs about their lives, and have gone for the commercial theory with the enthusiasm that a terrier goes for a rat

For the umpteenth time; all of us agree that working people did produce songs about their lives. The disagreement is only about how many of the songs in the classic Victorian and Edwardian collections originated in that way rather than from commercial song writers. In the absence of hard evidence I can't see us getting beyond informed guesswork for most songs, based on subjective assessments of their wording.

Anyway there is a continuum, from strictly factual accounts from eye witnesses to total fiction. In between there are many, such as the ballads of inter-class marriages being prevented, that may or may not be true accounts concerning real individuals (Tiftie's Annie clearly is a true account, at least in outline if not in detail) but anyway do accurately reflect the state of affairs in society in those times (whoever wrote them!). The tales of inter-class marriages being achieved despite parental opposition are more likely to be fantasies, but who's to say for certain for any specific instance?

I said yesterday
"Let's take each one on its individual merits
a) as a song that we enjoy singing or hearing for its own sake, and
b) as possible evidence of how things really were for certain people at a certain time in the past."

Lighter commented
"But not very good evidence because the songs are often heavily stylized, and post-1900 historians have unearthed far better sources, which they cite extensively in their publications."

Indeed often not very good evidence but there will be exceptions.