More questions, beginning with, shouldn't I resist this urge to poke a little fun at Gargoyle's Natural Selection/Survival of the Fittest perspective on songs, since it's too easy?

But I wonder does a song have any intrinsic value before it has weathered the test of time, if perhaps it will, or is it only after it actually has, already? Like that song, apparently written at the start of the Hundred-Years War, that begins "Now begins the Hundred Years War...."

Why do so many traditional songs seem to me to describe a world in which good things have been lost, poorer things displaced them, if the songs themselves are proven good by virtue of having endured? Are they good, only not as good as other songs that have been lost? Or do we learn from history that we don't learn from history.

Where is it all going? Will we someday arrive by this process at, say, ten songs, from which to select one as The Song, perhaps having a runner-up in case the former is unable to fulfill it's duties?

I usually take "scribbler" popsicles which are multicolored so there's no fuss about which child would prefer which color. I thought it was a good idea, but maybe I should take popsicles that have weathered the centuries?

Is the ephemeral of lasting value?

Gargoyle, do you like folksongs because they are so demonstrably good, or do you actually like them? Could you share that with the class? I think I'm pretty open to suggestions, and take enthusiasm seriously, more so at least than specious arguments. The survival of the fittest idea turns up in some unsavory places, as a circular justification. I wouldn't use it, anymore than I'd use current popularity to support pop tunes. It's so much nicer just to like what you like, I think.