When I was younger I could remember a song after hearing it once.
I wrote down words only when I wanted to play my guitar to it, so I could write in where to put the capo and when to change the cord.

Then suddenly I could no longer remember the words - and some cords. I mean, how can someone forget D Dm and D7 - well I did.

So I went through my diary to look for mentions of songs I had not already written down - and then I found Mudcat, amongst other resources, and I did remember that I sang something like the songs I found, but my repertoire was rather different from most.

So - without the book I would have had to stop singing, so I used the book.

I think my memory is getting a bit better. It is rather strange - I have never forgotten Tam Linn, but something with three verses - no, gone.

The last thing however is a real pain - I thought I would look up some new songs, that is songs I have heard but which did not stick fast, and now it is the tunes.

I decided to learn Penny for the Ploughboys and Curragh of Kildare.

At first I could not carry either tune, but have persisted - using Utube to find and sing along with various different recordings. It has taken several hours, but I think I have them now.

I know that might seem a small amount of time to learn a tune and song, but it used to take no time at all.

So - please - do not think that it is laziness or lack of application for someone to produce a song book so as to read the words.

It could just be a failure of the little grey cells.

In making the several copies of my song book I have devised a method of book binding, and also how to get the computer to print out paper with the number of lines I decided was most useful for my purpose.

So not all my time wasted.