What's wrong with the word? Sure, it doesn't apply to anything today but neither does "buggywhip" or "blacksmith", for most people, or "cat o' nine tails". Does that mean we have to go back and purge those words from our songs?

To go one step further, does the fact that we once ran (or were run in) a slave economy taking advantage of another group of people and suppressing them savagely imply that songs from that period are not to be sung? I find this hard to understand. Are we too delicate to live up to our own history and look it in the eye? Should we retreat to a dream world where such things never happened? What about murders and bank-robbings? Should we cancel the death of Laurie Foster because it is too sad? Let's not sing songs about William Kidd, because what he did really sucked also. The very thought makes me a little seasick. As for that technically challenging Golden Vanity, it is too cruel to think about. Anything with "three times around swung our gallant ship" should be deleted from memory also. Adieu to Henry Martin.

Guys, c'mon. These are folksongs from earlier periods in our history. FolkSONGS, not actions of desperate cruelty.

A