"with a reference to the necessity for empathy"
You did raise it at the time Mike; I intended to respond.
Empathy is an obvious approach, as is simple storytelling.
In the short term they are fine, but I found the problem with both was after a while they wore a little thin and repetative, especially if you are singing regularly. IMO, if you want to keep the songs fresh and alive in the long term make them part of yourself.
Sam Larner sang at the Fisherman's Return in Winterton once a week thoughout his adult life. According to him, he sang the same songs each time with very little variation, as did the other singers there. Of all the traditional singers I have heard, Sam is the one who gives the impression of 'living' his songs; of their being a part of his experience.
I hope you don't mind if I describe how I saw this involvement work with another traditional singer, not so much as an emotional connection with the song, but as a singer's emotional state informing the singing.
Mary Delaney was/is (not sure if she is still alive) one of the most amazing individuals we ever met. Her life reads like a Dostoveski novel.
Blind from birth, she brought up 14 children on her own, on the road, until the authorities, in their wisdom, decided that, due to her blindness, she wasn't fit to look after the younger ones and took them into care.
Eventually, after a long struggle, she got them back and in order to get them educated, moved into a flat in Bethnall Green. We were visiting her regularly and noticed that she was becoming more and more depressed, due mainly to lonliness; the young children were at school all day and the rest of the family was up North, on the road.
We recorded a rake of songs from her, including a magnificent, long version of Lord Randall, which she tended to overpitch and run out of breath at the end of lines (she was a chronic asthmatic).
One afternoon we turned up at the miserable flat to find her as depressed as we had ever known her to be. She said she wanted to sing for us, and everything she sang was spot on, good, competent singing. She asked us to record 'Buried in Kilkenny' (Lord Randall).
It was the most emotionally charged, knife-edge singing I have ever heard, she poured all her feelings into it, it shimmered with her emotion.
If ever we were asked to choose one of our recordings as 'the best' (GF), it was that one.
Jim Carroll