"It's all about developing a personal relationship to the songs you're singing".   This is how I approach the songs I sing. "whilst he's singing … he's in there in the story" Absolutely! How could I get into the story, how could I lose myself in the song/story if I didn't know it, if I had to read it? (How could I sing with my eyes closed?) I also enjoy listening to people who really mean what they sing; not ones who think that they are more important than the song they're singing, that their need to perform is more important than the song itself.   For me the song comes first and the performance (and more accurately the performer) second.

Luckily, this is the "folk world". At my regular (fortnightly) singaround nearly every singer seems to feel the same. It was actually set up by a few singers who had had enough of the other type of singaround. Occasionally a newcomer or visitor may arrive with their words or song book. Perhaps they get a second song, probably they don't. Some continue to come along and adapt to the "norms", some stop coming. OK, it's discriminatory but it works and we have a brilliant singaround that suits all the regulars (and it's one of the best attended singarounds I've been to.). There is one person, recently recovering from a stroke who always gets a song and always has the words in front of them but they've "earned" the special dispensation from the past. The reason I'm not posting by name is so that there's no way of identifying, and possibly embarrassing, that person.

BUT, I also occasionally go to other clubs and singarounds where there are singers who have their bits of paper and even two who bring their own music stands. I don't really enjoy their performances, not because of the aids but because their performance is not as good, perhaps because they need the aid in the first place. The hiatuses (hiati???) where they lose their place and have to look down etc. and even the initial fumbling for the right page all detract from the song. (True in the "no paper" club someone will occasionally forget their words but it seems to happen much less frequently with these singers.)   Still the "performance" clubs work for their regulars and I don't have to go there (usually I don't) so I say live and let live. Thanks to the variety of the "folk world" at least I can go somewhere where my preferences are catered for.