Damn...oops Darn! (sorry, I may be a heathen, but that's no reason to swear)

This really IS a great thread. S'makin' me think...and that's always good.

Burke you make a good point. I've never sung the old whaling ballads (and shoot 'em up ballads) as "political songs", I sing 'em strictly for the stories. Now actually I DO sing a lot of fairly political material, which I HAVE to believe in or else I simply COULDN'T sing them. They don't really have the kind of musical content that can stand alone. The Gospel songs often DO. besides, the message in many a Gospel song is "Have faith, and things will be all right". I DO believe that...sincerely. It's just that my idea of faith is (so far) based on PEOPLE "doin' the right thing", as opposed to a Diety (and if you credit the billions around the world as having a clue, then you have to admit there are MANY Dieties) The concept of one Diety (over all the rest) just has never seemed remotely logical to me. Doesn't stop me from being close friends to some quite religious folks. Makes me feel good to know that they think I'm WORTH the effort! Ha, Ha!

Rick