> "I still lament the fact that most collectors never bothered to ask their informants what their songs meant to them."

Some years ago I asked the unusually articulate MudCat community the same question, regarding either "The Dark-Eyed Sailor" or "Fiddler's Green" (forget which), and got exactly no replies.

It is extremely difficult to explain meaningfully why you like a song or a poem. (Try it yourself.) Explanations are generally "Because it's so good!" or "I love it when X does Y to Z!" or "My parents sang it" or (perhaps in the present case) "It teaches a valuable lesson."

With the inevitable exceptions, I'm not sure that traditional singers would have replied very differently.