Barbara and I used to go to Seattle Song Circle every Sunday evening and thoroughly enjoyed it. Then gradually, after it met for some years, some members, mostly newcomers, started bringing song sheets and song books and singing from the sheet or book songs they apparently couldn't be bothered to learn. Jacque Brel was really big with a couple of people one year.

Then copies of "Rise Up Singing" began appearing, and it was not long before it was "We will now sing hymn number 136…." And instead of going around in a circle (so everyone could get a chance) and singing individually, sometimes with the group joining in on choruses, everybody sang together with their noses in the book!

I have a copy of "RUS," but I don't use it much as a song source. The editors or compilers have gone through the book and bowdlerized the words, editing them. From the usual versions that you might find in the Lomax collections or Sandburg's "Songbag," they are all so "politically correct" that it makes one want to gag!!

Barbara and I haven't gone to Song Circle for several years. Boooooring!!

Don Firth