Been thinking about this more & it strikes me (particularly after someone mentioning the brilliant Les Barker, who makes reading part of his performance) that memorization of long poems or plays is no longer as prevalent, and the habit of memorization that having a decent singing repertoire requires is NOT a habit that is valued in our current educational system. Why memorize when you can just google it?

I was raised by an aunt much older than my peers' mothers, who went about the house spouting poetry for the sheer enjoyment of it, that she learned in school in the 1920s. I KNEW when she got into "Charge of the Light Brigade" she was on a pleasant ambitious tear. Long before I sang, I learned poems I liked and spent part of 6th grade learning the first three pages of "The Ride of Paul Revere" for my own amusement, and nobody around me thought that was odd. I can still recite a batch of 'em.

In high school my group of friends were all Firesign Theatre fans and could perform the whole Nick Danger saga - an entire album side. I think a good part of the enjoyment of this communal effort was that we KNEW the material completely - we used it as in-joke reference points. That KNOWING it in common gives you the chance to make a bond that performing/singing it together solidifies. There is nothing to get between the singer and the song. I've found sometimes that my playing an instrument gets in the way of putting a song across best - many times my instrumental grasp is not as solid as my vocal memory of the song.

So, I'm wondering - chicken or egg - are we having a harder time building a folk community because of "the book"/crutch getting in the way of that bonding, or does the lack of community feeling dictate use of the crutch? Either way, we loose the craic, don't we?

Joanne in Cleveland, never short for words.