Will,

"I'm only doing it to illustrate a point: that the authenticity/appropriateness or otherwise of songs seem to generate much more heat than the authenticity/appropriateness or otherwise of tunes. Now - is this because the content of songs - their social context, the viewpoint and experience of the singer (I can't say composer) from whom it was collected, is the key factor?"

Excellent point Will.

I think that much heat is generated because many of us, and our friends who come to clubs but don't sing, are uneasy about being teachers, bank clerks, nurses and electricians singing sea shanties, songs of agricultural bliss and the Blackleg Miner, and we don't quite know what we are keeping alive or why.

Most of this baggage is lost with tunes. But I would go much further and suggest that those of us who play tunes today are pretty much the same people carrying on the same tradition as people have for 3 or 4 hundred years.

Cheers

Les