A classic example of a cut-able song is "Greensleeves," oft regarded by many who are not all that familiar with folk music as the quintessential English folk song. I was under the impression that not many current folk-oriented singers do this song any more, or have recorded it, but a casual check shows that it's still alive and out there. Anyway, I believe in its original (?) 1580s form, it runs some eighteen verses, most of which consist of cataloging all the lavish gifts the suitor has bestowed upon the lady, and culminates in his whining that after all this, she still won't flop for him.

Not quite the sweet love song that most people think it is.

I would say that what a singer does with this raw material depends on how they see their role in relation to the audience. If you are basically entertaining your audience, you might want to cut "Greensleeves" down to a manageable two, three, or four verses at most and maintain the song's recent image of pastoral sweetness (with maybe just a hint of its real nature). If, however, you are heavily into authenticity and see yourself in the role of educating your audience (and blowing their illusions, perhaps), you might haul off and sing many more verses, or the whole thing, revealing the lovely ditty's dirty little secret that it's really about courtly bed-hopping, and that the suitor is trying to buy the wench.

"Greensleeves" is kind of "either / or" that way. But I do believe that with many longer songs and ballads, one can maintain an authentic presentation and still cut some of the repetitive, ritualistic verses to make the song more manageable by modern audiences. Better that than bore them tears and make them lose interest entirely.

Don Firth