Query: Has anyone sat down and distinguished the old songs from the new? Because virtually all the German folks songs I have heard sound as if they were either composed by someone with sensibilities such as described - by city people wanting to be close to the folk, or processed to fit the taste of city people. American folk music often sounds like that, too, but the phonograph was invented while there still was a vital tradition, so that some real stuff survived. One has the impression that in Germany, it may have been too late.