[Musicians] Re: Tune IDs? ("Dusty Roads" and "Rubber Dolly")

Looking again at the transcription of "Back Up and Push" at https://tunearch.org/wiki/Back_Up_and_Push_(1) , I see that I indeed looked too hastily at it before composing my previous message. What I mistook for a sharp in the key signature is actually an accidental (and on D, not on F as the sharp would be in the key of G major). So the transcription is indeed in the key of C, not G. Thanks to Joe Michaels for reporting his conversation with John Burke and getting me to look again. That said, the pair of notes I discussed in my previous message--corresponding to "told me" in the "Rubber Dolly" song--still exhibit a melodic difference between the two transcriptions I cited: "mi mi" in "Rubber Dolly" vs. a descending "re la" (not "sol re" as I previously stated) in "Back Up and Push". And unless I've erred about how what I'm hearing is supposed to line up with the bar lines of the sheet music, it's also still true that where the transcriptions I've cited have two notes (whether "mi mi" or "re la"), the banjo rendition of "Rubber Dolly" that I cited has seven notes, though my ears aren't well enough trained to say just what pitches they are. So the whole situation still leaves me pondering the question of how much rhythmic and melodic change a tune can take and still be "the same". On a side topic, I may just be revealing my ignorance as a person of negligible musical accomplishment, but I'm never sure quite what to make of it when someone asserts that a tune "is in" such and such a key, instead of merely saying that the tune is usually/traditionally played in that key, or that it's usually played in that key in a particular community. I wonder how often those key choices are just the result of historical circumstances, such as lots of people learning a tune directly or indirectly from someone who happened to play it in a particular key, and how often there are things about a tune that genuinely make it easier to play or make it sound better in a particular key, such as things about the fingerings you'd have to use or the notes that land on open strings on particular instruments in particular tunings. I did a little searching for notations of "Back Up and Push" and among those I found, notations in C were indeed the most common. However I also found this one in A http://abcnotation.com/tunePage?a=www.mandozine.com/music/TOW/TOW-2007-abc.… and these in D https://tunearch.org/wiki/Back_Up_and_Push_(1) (see third transcription on the page) https://www.celticguitarmusic.com/tbot_backup.htm (near middle of page) http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/bluegrass-songbook/000563.HTM and this partial version in G http://abcnotation.com/tunePage?a=www.thomasbending.co.uk/titleless/Anon031… I also found some transcriptions that seemed to be for a very different tune (perhaps the Ward Allen tune listed in tunearch.org as "Back Up and Push (2)"?), but I'll consider those irrelevant for present purposes. --Jim [Correction: The cited transcription of Back Up and Push is in C, not G. --js] [Correction: That should read ... (re in C major) --js] [Correction: ... on A (la). --js] [Corrrection: That should read ... (... but melodically different: "mi mi" in RD vs. "re la" [descending] in BUAP.) --js]