I know it is just another culture, and valuable in its own right...but why do so many feel compared to pass out extras they have accumulated, wait until people have found the right page, not take no for an answer..and why do people feel they can not participate in the music unless they know all the words? it is music, not a poetry reading. You can hum along. Join in the chorus. Most of the songs at these events have choruses or refrains or pretty obvious melodies that you can pick up. Maybe it is the result of the follow the bouncing ball cartoons that had the lyrics on them...And I still shake my head in awe with the small group of women, who, when joined by the woman I consider the best singer in America, hands down, kept urging songs out of the blue book, and settled on "All I want is a room somewhere", whereas if they had shut up and listened, they would have had a once in a lifetime experience. Here is an undemocratic idea: there are song leaders and there are solo singers and there the rest of us..not immutable and unchangable roles, but there is a certain amount of luck or talent involved...I will personally go, and this is a preference and not a value judgement, where the music sounds the best. Not where it is the most democratically produced. I was asking people how far they would travel to go to an unknown group with blue books. I wouldn't go across the street. Mileages were very very low. One person who will be anonymous said do you mean how far would I walk to get away from them????

I will repeat that if people want to start up their own events, song circles, parties, whatever, using blue books as their guiding lights, that is of course fine and to be encouraged. It is when they come into established situations, one by one, a little trickle, and then more and then more, and drive out the good singers with the best songs that it becomes a truly horrible situation. Cut it off at the trickle or lose your group. mg