" You, apparently, cannot. "
Cannot what Dave
I have never ceased both singing and listening to folk songs - never
I don't regard what has been presented here as folk - they have no narrative form, tho they are narrative songs, the cry out for interpretation that simply isn't there
They are 'performed' rather than communicated as stories and experience - that is what makes folk songs 'folk' - they are about people rather than just sounds - that's what makes them
I don't find either particularly good examples of what they are - there are far better and inspired pop-type songs
Tall you what - I bet both of those renditions come with a little (c) - they both belong to somebody

I' not suggesting that you are to blame for what is happening - I am challenging your defending it as 'folk' which it isn't
I don't know anybody who was ever 'frightened off' by bombastic attitudes
When MacColl died the audiences for him and Peggy were as big as they had ever been
It is now possible to get most of the hundred or so albums made thirty years after his death - they are regularly being re-issued
I can't think of a single folk performer that that has happened to - can you?

You don't win people for your music by compromising and changing it to meet their tastes - you win them by doing it well enough for them to realise how enjoyable and important it is so they can enjoy it as uch as you do.
If you don't accept that stop performing and stick in a juke box
The finest art in the world comes from interpretation of inner passion an personal experience - crowd pleasing produces ladies with blue faces and white horses running through foam - chocolate-box art
Jim