I understand exactly, Don - I think you'd have to be at these singarounds in person to see what I mean. :-)

I'm not knocking the singing of traditional songs by any means - this is, after all a forum with a positive attitude to traditional music! There's just a certain earnestness on the part of some of the singers which I find to be an affectation...

I suppose it's why I don't sing many songs like that - I just warble tosh from the 1920s and 1930s! All very silly. The only song with a "message" of some sort that I indulge myself in is "Brother Can You Spare A Dime" - written in the 1930s. As a young boy in post-war Glasgow, I recall seeing ex-servicemen with no legs, sat on blankets, begging on street corners - and that song has a resonance for me for that reason.