Must say I'm surprized and pleased to find so many people with similar feelings to my own about that blasted book, and who have put them up here in much clearer fashion than I could have.
Just a couple of comments and then I'm done:
Joe asks "what do you do for community singing....... well you form a choir of course, choose a song and make the effort to learn the words and tune. Community building, like team building, succeeds when members enjoy success in overcoming problems together ie. succeed in singing a song well -together, in tune and without stumbling over the words or music. All Blue Book song circles are, are SLOPPY choirs, without the energy, cohesion or motivation to make the effort to do something well and the results frequently far from being community creating or building,are quite depressing for everyone involved
David ends his article by saying that he is not against the use of the book at song circles nor people who only sing songs from the book, or people who don't have a song to sing making a request from it, and with these comments I only partially agree.I have nothing against people singing songs from the book at song circles but LEARN THE SONG AND LEAVE THE DAMN BOOK AT HOME! If people want to diminish their options by only singing songs from the book I feel sad at their self impoverishment but have nothing against it as long as they LEARN THE SONG AND LEAVE THE DAMN BOOK AT HOME!As for people who arrive without a song to sing, we used to call 'em audience until they did turn up with a song they could stagger through.If they feel they don't ever want to inflict their musical "talent" on us then it's fine by me for them to make a request for a song provided THEY KNOW THE SONG AND HAVE LEFT THE DAMN BOOK AT HOME and that some idiot who isn't sure of the tune and only knows half the words doesn't try to fulfill that request!
Having had my last word on the subject let me just say that with all the great written sources there are around right now for every type of folk song imaginable I feel strongly that a Blue Book II would be a serious waste of our woodland resources.