"The need to lick them into a more acceptable shape doesn't seem to have deterred singers at the time."
Of course it didn't, but the vast majority of the broadsides never made it into the ffolk repertoire - a bit difficult to discuss in the context of Roud's book as he bungs everything into the melting pot and calls them all 'folk'
None of this is an indication of where the songs began - as I said, if you believe that 'the folk' were capable of making songs then you have to accept that they were the most probable composers of our folk songs, given the subject matter, the partisan nature towards poverty, injustice, class divisions, the use of vernacular and vernacular lore and humour, and above all, the familiarity with rural life.
Hoot
The anonymity of broadsides has always intrigued me - if they were the compositions of professional writers, why don't we know who they were
I don';t think anybody is suggesting that they were written by or for the upper class, bu the glees and Tavern songs that both the Steves' seem to set so high a value on were sung by a for an all-male middle-class audience.
Not my idea of 'the folk' by any stretch of the imagination
Jim Carroll