That is a short one-liner intro I sometimes used. If needed, I might elaborate a bit more. But for some audiences who resented long introductions, it might be enough.
It could instantly update an old song so the "now people" might see that an older traditional song can be a document of how other people dealt with times they had missed seeing/noticing were in several ways akin to to current hard times.
Often humor, or tall tales used in other times to belittle and make impotent (and get past) the anxiety caused by a given dilemma, can make the point quite well that these songs are actual documents passed down --- and are the words of those that lived through those belly-of-the-whale experiences.