Oops. Let's try that again.

I think audiences used to have a lot more tolerance of long songs than we think they have now. I'm thinking not of ballads but of songs like The Three Ravens -

Line 1
Refrain 1
Line 1 again
Refrain 2
Line 1 yet again
Line 2, finally
Refrain 3

When I've done it I've always wimped out and done four lines of verse instead of two, with no repeats. Do it with the repeats and I fear modern audiences would be champing at the bit after three or four verses - "His hawks do all about him fly", yes, yes, we heard you the first time, then what? Songs where the verses themselves include lots of repetition without variation fall into a similar category - after a few verses of the Prickle-Eye Bush it's hard not to hanker after a bit of complexity or narrative development...

"Yes, I shall bring you gold,
When I've got it back you see,
For I lent it to my two best friends over there
And I'm sure they'll give it to me."

Hangman, stay your hand
For ten minutes or thereabout
For my brother's financial affairs sound complicated
And he needs to straighten them out...

(Time to revive this thread, maybe.)