Gawd, that's awful Murray and tends to ruin the whole song though the rest is just fine. Which gets to my real point........

Great thread Bill, but its loaded with additional questions and pathways. Lessee here............Making a song your own is such a touchy business but I too agree that there needs to be at least a nodding familiarity for the history and period of the song and moreso where the songwriter was personally. This applies to almost any song even the newer ones.

One of the best threads I ever recall around here was a discussion of a Dylan song, "Don't Think Twice." Rick, PeterT, Hawk, me and I don't remember who all, had a lot of fun on this thread which rambled all around the song origins and versions and included specualation as to Dylan's state of mind and the point where he wrote this one. It went all over, under, around, and through, the various types of renditions and how they changed the meaning. We went through about half a dozen factors that made our takes on the song changeable.

Whatever......What I'm saying is that a real classic old chestnut like thi is subject to (or should be subject to) the same thought processes and investigation if you really want to make it both your own and authentic/true to the song itself. I'm not sure that happens all the time and especially to ones with beautiful tunes and words where strong players or singers are equally likely to show off their abilities rather than the song.

.............Answering your question Bill.....uh, yes.


Spaw