M t F:
Thanks. Totally understand, though I'm a nosy bugger. I have a similar lyric problem, although I'm not a professional singer, I enjoy singing even if only hiking by myself. A few years ago I was cheerfully on my own peeling out Stan Rogers' Barrets' Privateers and another hiker crossing paths with me out of the woods chimed in, not so much coincidence as good natured and well educated.

My lyric issue is with a Gordon Bok song, "Little River" where the lyric is a poem written by a woman that Bok set to music:

Little River lighted-whistle ,
Cry no more.
Sleepy sound from the breakers calling me
Back to shore.
Whistle it soft to the silver river,
Whistle it loud to the drumming sea,
Whistle it low to the moon and the morning,
Not to me,
Never to me.
For I'm swinging high in another country,
Swinging low .
Playing it easy, the dolphins follow me
Where I go .
Whistle it loud to the flood tide making,
Whistle it soft to the wheeling sun ,
Whistle it wild to my girl's heart - breaking;
She'll remember ,
She was the one .

Spring comes warm over Little River,
Storm comes black;
I was headed home when the Indian Giver
Took me back.
Whistle it high to the grey-beard breakers
Where the secret over the great shoals ran;
Whistle the world that was in my pocket
When I had pockets,
When I was a man



That bold line has an ethnic component which I'd like to replace, but the line, like the poem, perfectly expresses itself. Of course, the "Indian Giver" is God.

I have not been able to replace the phrase or the line with anything else that scans or rhymes. Otherwise, love the poem and the song, from the album "Bay of Fundy."