I saw John Kirkpatrick at the club last night. He's released (finally) a songbook containing 46 of his songs written over the last 30 years.

I just wanted to get down this brief quote from his introduction which strongly echoes my feelings.

...songs need clarity, and on the whole my rule of thumb would be to phrase the words with the same emphasis and rhythm as when they are spoken. This means you are constantly re-inventing the tune, bending the notes to accomodate the sense of the words with each successive verse. This process can be mildly terrifying, but it's actually also great fun, and infinitely more rewarding tham performing like some ethnically enhanced robot...

I thought I'd offer this in a new thread rather than posting it to one of the many threads on singing and performance values.

Details:
What Do You Do In The Day
The John Kirkpatrick Songbook
ISBN 0-9537914-0-8
Quarry House Publishing

Probably available directly from John at:
Squeezer
P.O. Box 531
Craven Arms
Shropshire
SY9 5WB

AndyG