I think the book is a useful tool - but I'm likely to be one of those people who slips out when everyone gets their copies out. It's not that I object to people needing the words, when it's not a session of experienced musicians. It's more that everyone buries their faces in the book, and forget that human beings have the ability to learn a chorus, or maybe just listen to a ballad. People stop singing with each other, and just each sing with the book.

It's a useful tool. I own it and use it a lot as a reference. It's nice to have at a church retreat or a campfire. But it's not, nor was it ever intended to be, the final word.

It's sad to me that a book which was intended to get people singing more together has proven such a stifling influence on the very music it was intended to encourage.

Maybe the Rise Up Singing crowd can learn to broaden their horizons just a little bit and sing one or two that aren't in the book. Maybe they can learn to look into each others faces, rather than the pages of a book, when they sing the choruses. That would be a good start.

Dan Schatz