I've always found folkloric studies and musicology to be rather interesting, but not really relevant to the actual singing or playing of music. The correct way to do a traditional folk song is the way you do it. A "definitive version" in trad music seems like a contradiction of terms. Historicity is academic, which in many ways is the opposite of the oral tradition. The people who started the tradition weren't setting out to start anything -- they were just playing music.

I find it somewhat unsettling when people do one of my songs without changing it slightly to make it their own. I can't imagine trying to copy another performer's version of a song or a tune. Why would anyone do that? Why would anyone want to listen to it? Why would people get together to sing as a group and not want to hear anything new, including new versions of their old favorites? why not just stay home and sing along with a CD?

As I said above, I have always found folklore studies interesting. This is mostly becuase I am endlessly fascinated by the strange versions of songs that pop up all over the place. How can anyone be into traditional folk music, with all its roiling mess of hand-me-down versions of songs, and think there could possibly a definitive or correct or "real" version of any song or tune?

John