Robert if you do not want to get caught up in the above post, I would be interested in your views if any, on Lloyds musical pigeon hole that he christened the 'industrial tradition' With reference to the ballad index, have you found any so called industrial folk songs with a creditable provenance to separate them from the broad mass of Folksong? Shanties, ballads, ritual songs have an individual place in the tradition. So called Industrial songs I'm not so sure. They do not have an independent purpose. My mind is open on the subject but in most cases I have found the songs are either a poetic text set to music (Dalesmans Litany- Poverty Knock etc.) or fabricated by Lloyd (Weaver and the Factory Maid- With my Pit boots on etc.) or early texts set to traditional tunes ( Byker Hill to the tune The Drunken Piper). Let me be clear I do not think this diminishes the songs in any way, and is no different to the street literature or the music hall in supplying songs to the folk, but my question is as follows. Is the industrial connection enough to to establish the songs as a separate medium and should they not be included within Folk Song generally. Have you found any evidence in the Ballad Index.