"My opinion, take or leave, 95% of this corpus came from the same source"
"You're now changing my 95% into 100%, Jim."
We'll leave the fact that you have also claimed 100% as well for a moment
"My opinion, take or leave, 95% of this corpus came from the same source"
Over the same time period I presume ?
Anybody who has read anything with any perception know that styles alter over in time so it is impossible to compare anything over different periods
The only solid evidence you have is the original published date - no idea if any song appeared before that date
Nobody here has come up with a statement that working people were capable of having produced such songs so we have to assume from their silence that they don't wish to commit themselves - fine by me, I can take that silence to mean whatever I want it to mean.
"We are not told what that percentage might be, presumably because he has not done the required research that others have.?" hw ****** arrogant can you get - whatever I might or might not have done, there has been over a century's worth of research carried out on this particular genre of songs, locally, nationally and internationally, all having fully accepted up to now that the people who sang the songs quite likely made them
You say these people weren't Gods, yet it is you people who are challenging centuries of work
I don't know how many songs were made by the people and I wouldn't be arrogant enough to claim I did - that would be the work of gods, given how little we know about both broadside and folk composing.
I have no ambitions to sainthood, I leave that to the more ambitious.
I've laid out the facts as I know them or believe them to be true - no more
Fat - we ghave a genre of songs that have been around at least since the time of The Venerable Bede - fairly well substantiated
Since a group of enterprising pioneers came across them they have been pt under faily intense scrutiny - pretty well all those involved accepted without challenge that they were made by the lower classes - no serious challenge until Dave Harker's viciousness.
Back in the seventies Maccoll gave me a study package produced by an American research team of song experts headed by Alan Lomax who had embarked on an intense study of international folk song, attempting to identify forms, disciplines, vocal techniques, poetic forms.... and put them into aa societal context - the project was entitled 'Cantometrics' (song measurement) - a further project (Choreometrics), did the same job on dance carried out by dance experts
Ewan wanted me to get it reviewed for the Folk Music Journal and the then editor, Mike Yate agreed that I do the review - I didn't want to and I shouldn't have done it)
The team examined folk son in minute detail, linking each nations songs to their social systems, language, geography, cultural influences....
Not one researcher, after such close scrutiny, felt the need to revise their opinions on the source of folk songs
Wonder what they missed - or maybe they were all agenda driven elitists like Child and Sharp!!
Now small group of largely print bound 'experts' have decided that all the experts of the past gott it arse-uppards
Yeah - give me a pen - where do I sign up to that one!!!
Jim Carroll