No, it doesn't happen with tunes. I brought one in and someone else took it over...THEN he changed the key to one I can't play in. It was written in that key, but it's a bugger to play it that way. Of course, I don't have any reservations about starting it in the other key.

I've never seen anyone get upset about someone else doing "their" song, and only once have I been told/asked to refrain from singing a song they "owned." One of the reasons I write songs is because certain people do many of the traditional ones I'd want to do. I give up. If you can't sing what you want, write 'em. Then there's no argument.

Unfortunately, the ownership thing has been prevalent everywhere I've lived. It gets interesting when going from community to community. At THIS place, so-and-so does that song, at THAT place, I do it. I can't sing the songs I've learned from certain people around those people because it was theirs first. The Portsmouth Maritime Festival's gonna be interesting because I got half my repertoire from The Johnson Girls and NexTradition, and Ken Schats and Alison Kelley are going to be there.

I think this song ownership thing is proof that something like a tradition continues. We learn songs from elsewhere, then sing them in our communities. I'm sure even in pre-revival, authentic folk singing, songs belonged to certain individuals. Look at who the songs were collected from - those were their songs.

Tom, Sally Gardens is another of Jay's songs, and The Garden Where the Praties Grow. Even though, strictly speaking, he didn't own them, I'll forever hear his voice and remember him when I one of "his" songs.