At one point I decided to lift the corner to see what was underneath

This to me is key. There's a Radiohead track I'm particularly fond of called Fifteen Steps. The thing is, when you've heard Fifteen Steps by Radiohead, you've heard Fifteen Steps by Radiohead; it's been recorded, it's there, it's those notes & beats and no others.

Contemporary songs in the tradition are different, but perhaps not all that different. When you've heard three different versions of the Moving On song, you've heard three different versions of a song by Ewan MacColl; different people can make it their own in different ways, but it's those words and that melody and no others.

When you've heard three different versions of Lord Bateman, you've opened a door on a huge range of variants, and just as huge a range of possible interpretations. It's endless. Traditional songs are asking to be sung, and they're asking to be reinterpreted and rearranged. Speaking as a singer (floor-level), that fascinates me.