CS challenged my saying
> I would expect repertoires in a hundred years time to include some of the recent songs along with some of those that are already old now.

I did say "some". If we (enthusiasts) today can sing and enjoy songs that came into existence in a very different world a century or three ago, why shouldn't similar enthusiasts another century in the future similarly sing and enjoy some of those same songs and some that are being made now? (Oops, sorry about all that alliteration.) Few if any of us are ploughboys, milkmaids, jolly tars, coal miners, lords or ladies. But we enjoy the songs about those people.

A lot of traditional songs are certainly not finished yet. They are well alive, being sung and being learnt by new singers. If they have been transported from their old homes (such as cottages, village pubs, behind the plough or before the mast) to new homes in folk clubs or on concert platforms, that's no worse than the earlier journeys which many of them made from the nobility to the peasantry, from the broadside presses of the big cities to the countryside, or from the land to the sea.

We sing them now because they continue to have a value for us, despite all the changes in the world around them, so I believe at least some of them will survive further changes in the future.

Richard