I mistrust that word "wordy" - it so often means that the user cannot be bothered to read or listen to so many words.

Words the songs have indeed - the main ballads many of them, yet the versions of the great ballads show that the words can change while the song remains the same.

Likewise they have melodies and rhythms (or did until some colectors forgot to collect those bits) and increasingly they do have them again as the songs are put to new melodies and rhythms. I did not say that the words were secondary. I said that the music was not. People remember songs for their melodies and rhythms. Once they ahve those they may go on to remember the words.

Nothing to stop words having music. If they don't they are at most poems but not songs.

I think the accompaniment can be a great carrier for the narrative - since we are on 60/70 electric folk-rock, let's take Tam Lin, or maybe Matty Groves. The accompanment punctuates those versions and adds to the dramatic effect.

Long Lankin drives me to distraction - my sympathy is for stone mason unjustly bankrupted because the lord would not pay him!