"To my mind, it's not the means of transmission that preserves or ossifies the songs, but the authority given to the source. A song is just as surely fossilised if the only accepted way to sing it is in accordance with the source, whether that be written or oral. and written songs come alive when singers internalise them and make them their own.", says Guest PMB.

Spot on! Those two sentences say far more than all the nitpicking and backbiting and worrying about what precisely Manifold did or didn't say or where he put his semi-colons!