LFF, I've never noticed a similarity between Liebestraum and Aura Lee/Love Me Tender, but now you mention it the notes of the melody and chord progress are probably similar if you change the note lengths here and there. My inner mental jury is still out on that one. I'll have to think about it for a while.

Someone once told me that on a trip to Ireland they went into a pub where there was a music session happening and the musicians started playing songs like I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen, on the assumption that my friend was a "tourist". When my friend began to request the old trad tunes, the musicians went back to the real music.

I have an abiding distaste for songs like Barbara Ellen - only based on the repetitiveness of the melody lines. It can probably be sung well, but the melody drives me nuts.

For some reason, the Eric Bogle songs don't annoy me. I don't hear others sing them often, but when they do the Oz folkies tend to sing them from the heart, because the content relates closely to Oz experiences. I also have fond memories of seeing Eric Bogle perform those songs.

Helen

I have to walk out of the room when some of the "bush poets" recite their poetry with that sing-song non-melodic melody, "dah-'dah-dah 'DA [upward inflection], dah-dah-dah duh [downward inflection]..." ad nauseum with not variation based on the actual thoughts or feelings being expressed in the words. For me, it is like when I have had some sort of weird infection and wake up in the middle of the night and can't quite get back into full consciousness, watching the world spin around.