Oh pullleeezzzeee!
We've been through all this and I don't think you had any takers for the idea that all songs were folk then.

Then I suggest you look at all the Mudcat threads and see the diversity of music spoken of here as being Folk; go into any Folk Club and hear what people of singing and playing in the name of folk. Mr Fox - classic Folk, but they only recorded one traditional song on two classic albums. Like I say, I'm not making it up - it's out there & it's happening.

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For example there is a specific exclusion for composed music that is retained in its original form - which is precisely what karaoke seeks to achieve. Likewise classical music retains the "dots" and merely alters the performance, not even the key, and any changes of language are limited to translation.

Musing idly...

Here I resort to the organic principles of the Tao, or maybe it's some of that Folk Character that the 1954 speaks of. There will always be intention, there will always result, perhaps Folk Character is measured by the shortfall between the two. Whatever Karoake & Classical music might seek to achieve, fact is there will always be change & variance in the sonic experience of what remains an empirical event.

One wonders to what extent Traditional Singers & Song Makers changed their performances; Jim has spoke of improvised ballad renderings, but is that likely? Ultimately no two performances of anything are identical - this accounts for the innumerable recordings of classical favs on the market: Purcell's Dido & Aneas (of which I have 4 audio & 2 on DVD), Vivaldi's Gloria (RV 589) (of which I have 5), Orff's Carmina Burana (of which I have none) - all of which are very differet corporeal realisations of what is essentially a concept for performance. And what of 4'33" which Cage envisaged as a demonstration of performance variance & listening, rather than the fatuous silence people generally take it for?

The dots may not change (although performance editions do change), but like Karaoke, each performer will bring to the thing their own character & interpretation and other random elements which will defy exact reproduction but will be a unique & an integral part of any performance of any piece of music. I don't think is is any different from what we have in (so-called) Folk Music. The crux is in the mechanism of variation that is known as The Folk Process. Like Global Warming and Crop Circles - the evidence is right there, but the jury will be out regarding the cause.

Here's a thing - if one thinks of Folk Song as being made (and therefore composed) and each variant remaining unchanged in & of itself with respect to its composer, does that not exclude Folk Song from being Folk according to the 1954 Definition?