What, actually, does "parody" mean around here? I think of it as a take-off an imitation intended to ridicule the original, or at least to make a joke of it. Some of the songs mentioned above don't seem to be doing that at all. "The Man Who Never Returned" says nothing about the "original" song. It swipes the model and makes something different.

Another instance. Someone wrote a "reply" to Eric Bogle's --damn, the name escapes me--

Did the bugles play the "Last Post" in chorus?
Did the pipes play "The Flowers of the Forest"

Now I've heard that reply called a parody, but it's not. What it says is (can't quote it) "We had good cause and weren't such fools as you make us out." That's a political reply to a political statement. It's not so fine a song as the original, but it's meant to be on a par with it, not a diminutive.

Of course, everybody makes folk songs out of other songs. Woody Guthrie seems to have done nothing else. But, that's not parody; the new one may be better than the original.

I'm grousing about the terminology, not the practice. I enjoy making fun of serious things, too.