Something to think about: Maybe the owners are doing the best they can--or on the other hand, maybe they are unfairly or unreasonably passing the buck ?

In your place, I might find out who controls the copyright to the words and to the music of a song. (These might be two different entities). The sleeve notes might have this information, as MMario says, or the ASCAP and BMI web sites, or the author/performers' web sites. If the rightsholder is a music publisher, it might have a web site which gives a phone number for a permissions department. I might then call that number and explain my situation and see what price they set. If the price were too high, I would skip that piece, or maybe get a lawyer with copyright and music licensing experience who might be able to talk them down to a lower price. I would then repeat the process for each song on the list.

The melody to "Good King Wenceslas" is called tempus adest floridum and is in the public domain unless I am very much mistaken. I don't know about the words. The Oxford Book of Carols (the old one, not the new one) might have author and composer information for GKW.

T.