My take on the 'long coach journey' bit - is not a long coach journey, it was the middle of the night on Moniaive festival campsite, a few years back. Unexpectedly overheard stuff, anyway - people sleeping, silence rules, and, out of I-don't-know-where, someone sang "What's going on ?" (Marvin Gaye ? Not my specialist subject). Comments :-

a) it was a wonderful performance. Unaccompanied singing at its best, I was very happy to have heard it.

b) as a clarinettist, I prefer to leave The Words to be someone else's problem, but that is not a bland melody, nor entirely trivial. It works.

c) I have no idea whether the song is to be regarded as Pop Music or not. Or who might wish to do the regarding.


And, since someone mentioned Metallica, I'd like to humbly suggest that their take on Whiskey In The Jar is worth a listen. It gave me the impression that they'd actually thought about the words, which doesn't happen often. Yeah, okay, see b) above, so I'm contradicting myself.