I enjoy cooking a whole lot, but can't follow a recipe without "adjusting" it to save my life. When I cook, I dig out several recipes for the same dish, or that approximate what I have in mind, and take some ingredients from one, some from another, and put together a dish that (usually) tastes good and is my own creation.I am a rabid bibliophile, and have amassed a library of folksong and ballad collections from the English-speaking world. Each collection can contain one or more versions of the same song, as set down by the collector. When I'm learning a song, I often approach it the same way I do cooking; start with a basic recipe and add the "good" bits from other recipes (meaning the bits I like as a singer). I like exploring the background of songs, too, and by reading the collectors' annotations, I can gain insights on the history or cultural background of the song.
It seems that since there are so many different song collections from so many different parts of the world, they can help us get a vison of any given song as a mosaic of time and place and people. Collectors who took down individual renditions by a singer at a particular place and time have contributed to the mosaic, not just imprisoned the individual setting under glass.