Yes of course sometimes my mind totally goes blank. The worse time ever was when had this illness called trigeminal neuralgia - the pain killers I took totally voided my mind for what seemed an infinity of time. I was gigging pubs at te time - singing songs that everybody knows - everybody except me, as it turned out!

sometimes it irritates me that the songs which are occupying all my thoughts and practice time and exciting my imagination, are not ready to perform - not eaten enough eggs I guess.

And worse is when you decide to do something get half way through a piece and realise you haven't practised it for 6 months - usually a request, someone has waited patiently for half the night for - told you they have driven fifty miles to hear you sing the bloody thing.

but all this really goes to show what I'm saying. get the performing thing sorted out. look at those songs which the audience have liked. try and analyse what YOU are good at. then you will maximise those bits and get to look forward to doing them. are there any bits from the songs you've played , you can co-opt into your own songs.

this is really what is meant by tradition - seeing what the Copper family and Bob Dylan have handed down to you. Not all the asinine gurning, and weird singing voices, and singing about redundant crap that no one has experienced - that they would have you believe is 'traditional' music.