Rob - you very kindly mentioned my playing of Russ Barenberg's "Drummers of England" - not a patch on Russ's playing which you can see also see on YouTube, by the way - and I have to say that when I first saw and heard this on the Transatlantic Sessions 3 series, I also thought it was a traditional tune! I only found out when I bought the 2-DVD set that he had written it.

It illustrates a point that I've been hammering away at for ages - to the edge of boredom for other people, I'm sure - that tunes, which carry little social baggage on the whole, seem to slip more seamlessly and acceptably into the sessions and the singarounds and the clubs than songs. There are whole books of Scottish and Cape Breton fiddle tunes - reels, strathspeys, etc. - of which the contents have been written over the last 30-40 years, and they're accepted as part of the repertoire because they fit beautifully into the genre. Just listen to the playing of Jerry Holland. Add to that mix the improvisatory part of fiddle playing - the rolls, shuffles, decorations, slurs, drones, etc. - and even modern-ish tunes like these can morph into strange and wonderful variations.

If we can't add to the old songs and change the old songs in the same way, while respecting what we know of the originals, then that particular song tradition will become an exhibit in a museum case. All communities change, eventually, and in odd ways. Let's remember that the Duke of Edinburgh is worshipped as part of the "cargo cult" in the remote Pacific island of Tanna!