there is an amazing tendency to take anything old and turn it into a up-tempo number

I had a frank exchange of views on another thread about that jolly old English thigh-slapper, Poverty Knock -
"Poverty, poverty knock!
Always one eye on the clock!
I know I can guttle when I hear my shuttle
Sing poverty, poverty knock!"
Yes, it's a song about back-breaking toil for starvation wages, but it's a folk song! Cheer up!

It is the nature of magical creatures to be immortal,

Lenny Lipton would agree ("Dragons live forever...")

and it it the nature of nature to cycle.

Eventually - but ageing and loss are universal experiences, and they're what this song is really about. A lot of our views of the song come back to the rather cheerful tune Peter Yarrow set it to - I wonder how different it would sound in a minor key.