"23 Feb 19 - 05:22 AM"
What have I not answered there Dave ?
I did do by putting Sheeran's song up - - if you can't tell the difference between his song and those others you listed then there is no point in our continuing - I'm not sure there has been for a long time
The most unique and important aspect of traditional song is that it is word based - the songs carry the stories, ideas, emotions, appropriations, experiences..... of 'the folk' - the people who made and carried them they are narratives with tunes
The song makers you listed, "MacColl, Garbutt and Tawney", make songs make songs using a similar form - you might have added Eric Bogle, Loon Rossleson, Jack Warshaw, Enoch Kent, Miles Wooton, Pete Smith, John Pole.... and the many, many others who used the same composition techniques
To my untrained ear, those you listed are indistinguishable from pop songs, if I wanted to listen to them, I would be listening to music that happened to have words
What words tere are are either drowned out by what should be the accompaniment but, rather, dominates the performance
Joust listened to Thompson.... the narrative - if there is one, in unfollowable, the words are turned to gibberish by having not making grammatical sense... broken up to make room for long gutar
breaks... if you removed the guitar the piece would he less than half the length
One of the great problems of much accompaniment of traditional songs is that, as skilful as it may be played, it swamps the narrative - you could go for a piss between lines
Our folk songs are statements in verse - your music is as far away as you can get from that
I've said this over and over again - your examples bear no resmblence to our folk song repertoire - if that is what you are selling as folk you're conning the punters and, while you're at it, you are destroying a people's art form
Sory Dave - we are not sppeaking the same language - you are arguing for the hostile takeover that hast taken place
I have no intention of climbing fences at my age - go read Lloyd's classic
Jim Carroll