But my primary question is how much do you think these songs, the personal ones, reflect our ancestors' lives. There are many songs about heartbreak and murder. Were these the only subjects that they were interested in?

Is it like TV and movies today? Only violence and sex were of interest? Is this a picture of humans that our interests have remained the same but our methods of expressing those interests have changed?

I acknowledge that a song of two lovers living in the "happily ever after" stage of their lives would not carry much interest. The question is, can we tell from the music how closely those people were touched by the subject of the songs. Did the songs make sense to them because they'd each heard stories about this or that lover killing his/her sweetheart? Did they know of instances like the False Knight who drowned ladies for their jewels? Or were these just stories to tittilate and scare the listener?