Can't say i agree with your analysis of the Bogle song. The narrator tells his story from an embattled position - less and less people understand how he feels.

If you tried to have a sensible discussion with Sweeney and the massed bands of traddie conformists about the nature of folk song - you'd know what an embattled position means.

Anyway 'Matilda' is a feat of songwriting that was astonishing when it was first written. Peel played June Tabor's version and it was so unusual by that time for any thing from the folk clubs to percolate onto steam radio (such was the corner the traddies had painted themselves into with affected rural accents etc) , that it was a sensation. But personally I always saw it as a man's song.

It loses some of its impact now that every bugger with a DADGAD guitar and a croaky voice has written a first world war song in Bonny Bogle's wake.

But when you've been through shit - or you're trying to convey the tale of a man who as been through shit. What good are you if you can't empathise? Reminds me of Rumpole's sidekicks in chambers trying to organise a defence in court - when they're only experience is civil law.

Where would the blues and rebel ballads be if the singer didn't imagine some degree of emotional support from the audience.