My personal introduction was amazingly similar to Sean O'Shea's above, except in my case the singer I first heard was my mother. The part of Sean's post that really strikes home with me was why he loved the songs because they told stories and were set to lovely melodic tunes. Also like Sean the part of the country I was brought up in was rich in songs about it's industries, agriculture and it's history. Because I liked those songs growing up enabled me to recognise, appreciate and learn similar material from walks of life and places other than those of my childhood, and if I can quote Sean, "I didn't learn these songs from performance,I learnt them from two lives connected in habit and companionship and everyday living."
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