TimTheTwangler wrote;
"Hi Guest Rowan I recently heard that song [Eric Bogle's effort about the trials of a young folk singer], for the first time at the Staithes gathering in uk earlier this year ,I thought it was brilliant. The guy I heard it from A lovely shavey headed bloke whos name escapes me at present. Later we got it from Tony Leonard as well.
Are those two a source then?
I write songs and would be bit miffed if I wasnt the source for them in ten years time."

I don't use the term myself and I don't deliberately avoid using it. There are a few songs and tunes that I've learned from various sources and brought into my local folk scene. Some became so popular that they're now played by people from all over and who've never even heard of me let alone played or sung with me.

For some of these I had thought "It'd go better if I changed this to that" and this has allowed me to arrogate unto myself (probably misplaced) responsibility for part of the currency of the item. But I don't regard myself as a source in the sense of the discussions above. Rather, I've thought of myself as just one link in a very long chain or more accurately, several very long chains.

Some links in the chain are identifiable; most aren't. Some links are regarded as anchor points at the beginning of the chain's length. Some chains are very long and others are very short; ditto strong or weak. Some spectacular links join and/or start many chains and a few glow with an incandescence that dazzles.

It doesn't bother me whether my link is recognised, acknowledged or neither but I confess that it is pleasant and delightful when I see that I'm not the last link in the various chains.

Cheers, Rowan