Talking not of racist songs in general, but of Alasdair Roberts's version of Little Sir Hugh:

What his performance of that song gives us is a shocking illustration of the power that these stories hold.

For the few minutes that he is singing the song, we are horrified by the cruelty of the Jew's daughter, and we feel the pain of Hugh's mother as she searches for her lost child.

And then the spell is broken and we perceive the song for what it is.

But perhaps we've learned something through that experience? Something that we wouldn't have learned if the performance had been hedged around with caveats and apologies and historical context?