Many of the songs I found and chose to sing over the years were the ballads like "Belle Starr"--ie. "East Texas Red"---"the Hobos Last Ride"---"The Pokegama Bear"---"Billy Vanero"---"The Death Of Robin Hood", etc.. Sometimes a word or two would get dropped in favor of making it scan better in any given performance of a song, or possibly, I just needed to take a breath, or an extra breath in a given place in a song. Those moments would change my performances of a song so that I never, or rarely, did songs the same way twice. Extra instrumental bits in between lines or verses were often ways that songs got changed, and I could always use that ploy as a way to take the extra breath and/or make an unruly line "fit".

Therefore, I was always recreating songs on the fly!!

Whatever, do it your way----and it will come out feeling right for both you and the audience. That's a big reason why I was always a solo performer. It's easier to be individual and personally eratic outside the confines of a group.

Art Thieme