If we didn't do new stuff, there would be nothing to be traditional in 50 - 100 years time would there? The best songs are about struggle, either with the land, sea, life and love, or else with democracy, diplomacy, defiance and survival, without those, what is life about? And even if the songs stop, the struggles still go on.... There are songs about four loom weavers, striving to keep their families alive, songs about women working in the mines - what are they but the forerunners of songs about Rosa Parkes and Emmeline Pankhurst?

As long as there is history, there is a future for traditional songs. There is no struggle now, that does not have its counterpart or contemporary in the past.

LTS