Many collectors, and I'm one of them, really enjoy comparing differing versions of a song or ballad. I included two quite different versions each of "Gypsy Davy," "The House Carpenter," and "Granny's Old Arm Chair" on my recent CD of field recordings. Rather than insist that one of these should be writ in stone, I prefer to invite further investigation of variants.

I'd like to see the editors of RUS write a careful introduction reminding users of their collection to keep in mind that what they offer (among the traditional songs, at least) is but one of many versions available to the singer willing to do a bit of homework.

As for Cecil Sharp - remember that he was publishing in the very early 1900s, a time of more restrictive concepts of propriety (Victorianism, if you will). Therefore, it's true that he did bowdlerize some of the material published in songbooks designed for kids of about the 4th grade level. Those are the polite piano-forte version referred to in the post that began this thread. But, please credit him with the fact that he took the songs down exactly as they were sung to him, warts and all, delightfully bawdy as many of them were, and kept all of his original notes (!), many of which have now been published in our more enlightened, or at least less-restrictive times. More than that, his collection of English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians contains many songs shown in several versions, none of which is presented as the "correct" one. I suggest that he is NOT guilty as charged.

Vance Randolph, the great Ozark collector, also published his wonderful four-volume work in more restrictive times, but now his bawdy tale collection has been made available in several volumes (Stiff as a Poker and Pissing in the Snow come to mind right away) and his immense collection of bawdy songlore has been published in two large volumes, edited by Gershon Legman (Roll Me in Your Arms and Blow the Candles Out).

Both of these collectors, Sharp and Randolph, and many others, also took care to publish variants of the material they gathered. Margaret MacArthur recently pointed out that Helen Hartness Flanders included seven versions of the old ballad of Andrew Barton (Elder Bordee, etc.) in her publications. In fact, I can't think of any 20th century collector who thought his/her version of a particular song or ballad was THE CORRECT version, to the exclusion of all the others known. For heaven's sake look at the Child collection, assembled in the latter part of the 19th century: dozens of versions of most of the 305 ballads included. I rest my case.

Sandy