There's no hard-and-fast rule, Gerry. We try to pick lyrics that are singable, make sense, and are reasonably authentic. If the singer has variations in his/her renditions of the song, that gives us more leeway.

I like performers who alter their songs to fit the time and their audience. Christine Lavin is a good example. I submitted 1990 and 2012 versions of her Sensitive New Age Guys last night. It's up to editors Peter Blood and Annie Patterson to make the final decisions. When there is a choice, I try to give them a good selection to choose from. And if I find lyrics we don't have at Mudcat, I post them here also.

Liner notes and artist Websites can have very inaccurate lyrics, so I don't consider them a gospel-truth source. Sheet music is usually quite accurate, but it's expensive. Oh, and fakebooks are horribly inaccurate. I try to use both printed sources and recordings.

I came to the Rise Again project kinda late. The book has 1200 songs, and it's due out in May or June. I've researched only 127 songs so far. Most of the songs are already in pretty good shape, but I'd like to review and research all of them if I can.

-Joe-