Some poems just ask to be sung. There's music in the words, and harmonies between the lines. The tune tends to invite itself in to visit with the text, such that the song and its singing becomes a conversation with the poet across time and place. There is a fine array in the folk tradition of such conversations of singers with poets: Peter Bellamy with Rudyard Kipling, David Parry with Robert Service, Garnet Rogers with Banjo Dan Patterson, Alan Fitzsimmons with Cicely Fox Smith, and many more. I have been inspired by their example to share some splendid poems by bringing them into the song circle.
In the same vein, some stories invite rhyme and meter, and some airs have words at heart. Some songs here are "voicings" of traditional tunes with my own texts, or rhymes set from a folktale or a period broadside. Some tunes are adaptations of traditional airs: a reel into waltz time, a working chantey into a minor-key slow air. One or two are a bit of both. Any song in this collection is guaranteed to be made from at least 50% recycled materials.
I find that my songs are never "written" until after they are made, if then. In the making, the song becomes a dance between eye and ear, with the words as dancers and the tune as the band. In the singing, I'm just the caller. You're the dancers. They're for you to sing.