Once a song is performed in public, Surely it becomes public property, open to anyone to sing it regardless of their accent or dialect. Just because someone like Bob Dylan sings his songs in a distinct accent doesn't mean every bu*er else has to, what's happend to individuality.

Through my day job as a community worker, I've been working with a group of Male Pensioners who are from Pakistan, but have lived in Bradford for over 40 years. In one of the sessions I recently had with them, we got talking about singing and I got one of them to sing one of his favorite songs, it was the John Denver song, 'Country Road' and he sang it in his own accent which was a mixture of Bradfordian and Pakistani, it certainly added character t' song.

What realy gets on my t*ts though is when folk do an introduction to a song in their own accent or dialect, then go off in a phoney Irish, American or other accent that isn't there own. Yep OK some songs do sound better if done in a particular accent, but lets not get uptight about it and say that it shouldn't be allowed, songs are to be sung by all, so let's embrace this and sing them naturally.