"No, he is explicitly concerned with the songs that the folk did sing."
Sorry Richard, but he specifies that he regards folk sons as anything folk singers sing, so presumably if one o the singers happened to be a member of the local light opera society the Roud index would include selections from 'The Student Prince'
It is for this reason that I find Son of Folk Song in England so unapproachable

"here is an example of a well written brosdside"
Your opinion Dick - not necessarily mine, but beside the point anyway - I'm not discussing "good and bad" individual songs - I go along with Child's "veriable dunghills in which, only after a great deal of sickening grubbing, one finds a very moderate jewel" on this, but I've bent over backwards to avoid my personal taste from buggering up this discussion
I'm talking in general terms when I refer to the broadsides as being poor poetry
Do you know Black Velvet Band originated on the broadside presses and do you knowe for certain that there were no versions prior to the published one - nobody else does?
It might have been written by a hack or one that was taken by one from the oral tradition., but whichever, it is a song that became embedded in the oral tradition
Was the broadside version well written - "cast in the jug for a lag,
A wipe that she pinched and bunged to me, and valued no more than a flag" souns very much to me like a songmaker trying to sound like someone he's not to me - I wouldn't dream of trying top sing it - I much prefer Martin's
All a matter of opinion - we all have a right to our own tastes
It is not me or Steve G who invented the term 'hack' - it is a lablel that has been attached to the trade for centuries
Go dig up the originator and slate him or her for his or her "nerve"
I am not advocating that any song from anywhere is "not worth preserving
Many of the broadsides are social documents of urban life and as such they are invaluable   
Richard
It really needs to be remembered that the songs under discussion came from a period when the 'folk' were beginning to change from active participants in their culture to passive recipients of it.
In both the later traditions in Ireland and in the non-literate travellers culture you had far less of a sign of the literary effects that Mrs Laidlaw was so worried about and also a healthy and extremely active song-making tradition
Jim Carroll