I know Ali, but haven't spoken to him about this - I remember him playing this song at gigs around a decade ago, but I wasn't following the lyrics, and was unaware of the content and connotations at that time. In more recent years, I've actually declined the opportunity to buy traditional records that include 'The Jew's Garden' because I find it so offensive.

For what it's worth, Ali is in no way racist; of course, to me it seems absolutely right that controversial choices like this should provoke debate. Despite the ongoing turbulence of the contemporary political landscape, in general I think the advances we've made as a society in just the last 10 years, in terms of awareness and judgement around these matters, mean that such unexpected and unhappy musical encounters are - thankfully - ever-less likely. But, we shouldn't be complacent, and when they do emerge it's right that they serve cause for challenge and discussion.

I can imagine a situation where a song is heavily caveated with a contextualising and critiquing introduction, such as 'this is a very dark reminder of the deep roots of antisemitism in our social history - the true villains here are not the characters of the song, but those that wrote and sang it in order to reinforce prejudice'.

However, in general, my view is that these songs shouldn't be sung. In some cases, there are obviously racist lyrics or verses that can be tweaked or omitted - Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day is a great example of a number that is regularly performed, and for a long time, thankfully, without the antisemitic verse.

If we take Sharp's 'trinity' of characteristics which underpin the tradition - continuity, variation and selection - songs that are racist in totality should cease to be 'selected' - they'll remain in the historical record, but will hopefully fall out of the repertoire.

Taking the example of TMSBMDD, if songs can be 'varied' in order to remove the taint of racism - enabling continued 'selection' and keeping the songs alive in terms of the bulk of the lyric, and the tune (thus maintaining a 'living' rather than 'inert' continuity), this seems very clearly to be the best option.

This isn't to draw a veil over the history of such songs - keeping them alive in altered form still allows the space to discuss their previous shape, as a cautionary tale and to encourage vigilance against more subtle/covert contemporary forms of prejudice.