"if a song is badly written this shows it must be by a hack,"
No - no - no
Good and bad are subjective terms in relation to individual songs
There are many folk songs that don't move me enough to want to sing them, while there are a few broadsides I relish - my favourite song, the one I usually drag out when asked to sing is The Ranter Parson
I was given it by a friend who got it from The Madden Collection and worked on it to knock the corners off
It is the overall style of broadside writing and their one dimensional approach to their subject matter that makes them unsingable
Broadside style is as identifiable as folk song style - you know one when you see/hear one
I've only ever heard The Coppers sing Shepherd of the Downs and I find their singing so singular and at odds with folk song style in general that I find it difficult to judge many of their songs
I'm not happy discussing traditional singers like The Coppers publicly, I don't think it fair and try to avoid it
Jim Carroll