After my last posting here at 12:08 Mudcat time yesterday I was out at Sharp's Folk Club, where were sung all sorts of songs, new and old, most of them in my opinion (though not all) worth listening to. Having got home late, I got off to late start this morning. In the meantime there have been many further postings here, and I was going to say that the thread has moved on; but more accurate would be to say that the thread is getting stuck deeper in the mire.

Jim asked (inter alia)
> why is it so impossible to accept that rural people wrote rural songs about rural subjects - likewise seamen, or soldiers....?

I would have ventured to answer that, but Steve already did
> It isn't! We keep stating that rural people (and soldiers and seamen) did write rural songs and indeed we have given plenty of good examples of what they wrote. More if you wish.

Jim came back again
> You have described these songs as Farers writing of their own exppereinces which have not become folk songs
No answer

(Excusing the typos) I presume that Jim is challenging the latter part of Steve's answer, concerning examples. I too would like to pursue that a little further.

But Jim, do you now acknowledge that we all do accept that some songs were written by the people whose affairs they deal with, and that we disagree only in our estimates of the proportions?

Steve, please expand about the examples. It seems to me that not very many particular songs have been mentioned on this thread, that some of those have every appearance of having been written by individuals whose business was song writing, and that we have no information as to who most of those individuals were. Which songs, mentioned above, do you personally regard as (probably or certainly) written by rural people?