Good Songs You're Sick Of

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Celtaddict
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 06:10 PM

There is no doubt that the "done to death" category is not only highly regional but even more local. But I must say (though the obverse is certainly true) there are a number of singers from whom any song is worth a listen, and of those I never tire; they make me hear old songs anew, and can make me love a song I never liked before.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 06:13 PM

Darn! Clinton - Raptor and I are trying to arrange for you to do a house concert in the Barrie-Orillia area (seriously!), and...

Well, I hate to say it, but we were hoping you would do "Barrett's Privateers", as well as "The Unicorn", "Wild Rover", and "Streets of London".

So please reconsider. We do not need you to do "Achy Breaky Heart", but you can if you want to.

- LH

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Celtaddict
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 06:22 PM

Joybell, I agree that the predictability of the requests from those who ask for "Irish songs" when what they want seems to be "Danny Boy" or "The Wild Rover" can get a bit tiresome. I think you are onto something with your observation that they "think most songs are Irish" as the Irish have played such a large role in the origins of much American and Australian traditional music, not to mention bluegrass and cowboy and maritime. I suppose it has become used as a generic term for a particular type of song, often rooted in home/land/family/loss, all major topics in traditional music in general, often involving drink and courtship, ever popular topics, and also often involving choruses that invite (or demand) participation. No doubt a good deal of confusion arises from the highly prominent singers who sing from a variety of sources though they are known as "Irish" singers. The Clancy Brothers, the Dubliners, Mary Black, and a broad variety of pub-type singers come to mind. Why else would anyone think "The Unicorn" was Irish? On the other hand, though I love Irish and Scots songs, and a good deal of English balladry, and a number of contemporary composers, and in fact do know the provenance of the great majority of the songs I enjoy, I have to say that my enjoyment is neither increased nor lessened by knowing if a song or songwriter is "really" Irish or anything else.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Gray D
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 06:22 PM

So y'all still love to hear "Summertime (when the livin' is...)" in a cod southern accent, then?

Gray D

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 06:23 PM

Well, Celtaddict, I think you have just made the case for drawing Jim Moray into this thread too as this is exactly what he has done for many with songs like Early One Morning, Gypsies and Poverty Knock.

People (though clearly not all) are listening anew and realising for the first time just what some of these songs are really about.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Joybell
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 08:26 PM

Yes celtaddict thanks, but the truth of it is that the Clancy's and Tommy Makem never claimed that a song was Irish if it wasn't. I don't mean to critize Mary Black on her performances but her liner notes do make claims like -"Rose of Allandale - Traditional Irish". Another point is that although we, here in Australia, were always taught that most of our "traditional" songs originated in Ireland it just isn't true. There may be a case for this in New South Wales (although maybe not even there) but here in Victoria the overwhelming influence was England and America through the minstrels and the early touring performers. English music-hall and sheetmusic from America and England also had an impact. My family came here from Cornwall, as did 80% of migrants on the goldfields of Bendigo in Central Victoria, and I can tell you that Stephen Foster is still regarded by members of the Victorian Cornish Association as the greatest songwriter of "modern" times. Songs were brought out by the migrants themselves, of course, but these were often the popular songs of the day from those same music halls and from the minstrels.

There's nothing wrong and a good deal that's very beautiful about Irish songs but ALL songs are not Irish! And all songs do not originate in Ireland!
                  Joy of mixed Cornish,English,Irish roots.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Janice in NJ
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 08:38 PM

This may seem trite, but if it's a good song I'm never sick of it. Yes, some songs are over done, but if they are truly good songs they are timeless, and the day will soon come when the 25th or 30th cover will be some wonderfully fresh rendition. For example, there was a time when just about every folkie I knew was singing Jesse Fuller's San Francisco Bay Blues. It came to the point that I would roll my eyes as soon as I heard the intro. But then I heard the song a couple of years ago performed by someone on the women's music circuit. She was young and couldn't possibly have been around back then. And I thought to myself, Wow, what a great song! I put it back into my own repertoire for the first time in goddess knows how many years.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: kendall
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 05:11 AM

Amazing Grace.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 09:02 AM

You leave our Gracie out of it.
eric

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 09:39 AM

Amazing Grace; especially on the pipes,I shall be Realeased, Ise the bye, Seven Old Ladies, Brennan on The Moor, This Land is Your Land and finally....Wild Colonial Boy. And yes, there were Roses is not only dreary, it iks dreadful.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: John Hardly
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 12:11 PM

Most of these are really good songs -- and I'd hate to see them not done, even though I agree, I get sick of them.

I love to hear a new spin on an old gem -- One that comes to mind is Joel Mabus' handling of "Don't Let Your Deal Go Down". He almost makes it a new song. If more folk were reinterpreting like Mabus and Tim O'Brien (the absolute MASTER of reinterpretation), instead of regurgitatin' 'em, maybe I wouldn't tire of the good's so fast.

I love the old gems for one particular function -- they still work better than anything to bring strangers together. I have the joy of playing with strangers quite often as I bring my mando and guitar on the road with me (to art fairs). We can stumble 'round for tens of minutes trying to think of something to play together, then suddenly...

..."hey, you know "I Shall Be Released"?" or "Last Thing On My Mind"? or "Dark Hollow" or, or, or...

...suddenly half a dozen strangers are making music together like they've played together all their lives. A wonderful feeling.

Thank heaven for the standards!

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: PoppaGator
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 01:16 PM

Nominees for the Done-To-Death award obviously vary greatly from locale to local and from genre to genre.

In Preservation Hall in New Orleans, a sign something like this is prominently displayed:

Requests:    $5
"The Saints" $100

I don't recall the exact dollar amounts, and the sign is so old that the (pre-inflationary) numbers might be lower than what I wrote -- but the message is clear: Puh-leeeze don't ask us to play "When the Saints Go Marchin' In," we're sick to death of it.

Less-than-knowledgeable tourists visiting a place closely identified with a certain musical tradition, of course, are going to ask for the few titles from within that tradition that they recognize (including things *erroneously* associated with that tradition). I'm sure that the same general trend that is true for traditional jazz in N.O. is true for Irish folk music in Dublin (or, for that matter, in Irish-themed pubs anywhere in the world), and for many other locally-identified genres and sub-genres around the world. (For example, I wonder whether there are players in Liverpool sick to death of doing Beatles tunes.)

For a song to become overdone and over-requested, it pretty much *has* to have been "good" to begin with -- appealing in some way to a fairly large public.

Also, musician/singers are likely to loose their taste in such a tune much sooner than the general public, whether in the role of performers of whom requests are being made, or simply as listeners among other less-sensitized audience members.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 01:33 PM

Black gospel groups are expected to do Go Down Moses, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (maybe even Nobody knows de troubles Obscene.) I went to hear the Five Blind Boys a few years ago, and they were playing in an elegant recital hall with a 95% white audience, decked out to the nines. Just about every song they did, I'd heard eight million times before, but they were singing for their audience, and the audience loved it. I ended up leaving at intermission, bored out of my skull. It wasn't that the songs were bad, or that they did a bad job on them. I just was waiting to hear a song I hadn't heard to death already.

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I went to hear the Five Blind Boys, and I was very skeptical. But, the audience was at least 50% black, and they had "church" that night... many exclamations shouted out from the audience, and half the songs they did, I'd never heard. The ones I had heard weren't common, and they did an unusual version of the songs. It was one of the greatest concerts in any genre that I've ever heard. Same group, different environment..

By the way, Kendall, they do Amazing Grace with a blues arrangement to the tune of House Of The Rising Sun. I thought the combination of a song about a Whore house, blended with Amazing Grace was kinda interesting, and it worked fine... try it out in the safety of your own home, sometime..


Jerry

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST,Mickey191
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 02:27 PM

Joy-Doing great-hope you are as well.I love most of the songs you've mentioned, especially Shule Agra & Will Ye Go Lassie Go. It puzzles me that some of those would be construed as Irish.

I didn't know the lyrics of Danny Boy were written by one Fredrick Weatherly, an English Barrister. Thanks to a lovely little book penned by Malachy McCourt, which traces the roots of the song, one can learn _everything_ about Danny Boy. I know it's corny--but I do love it.Some of the artists who have covered it: Paul Robeson, Jerry Lee Lewis, Patti La Belle,Elvis, The Flamingos,Twitty,Boxcar Willie, and Carly Simon.                  
That sure is a wide range of artists.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 02:43 PM

And the gospel song, He Looked Beyond My Faults And Saw My needs is to the tune of Danny Boy... a very powerful song.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST,Martin Gibson
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 02:53 PM

Anything sung by Bob Dylan

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST,Pete Peterson
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 03:32 PM

Interesting dichotomy posed here-- I agree that Hard Times is overdone. BUT knowing that you can get 100s of people all singing it, that's FUN!
Similarly-- Wild Rover. If you sing in an Irish pub, then that (and Danny Boy) will probably be on the "request" list constantly. . . but maybe you can get others singing!

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 04:27 PM

I second Amazing Grace, also could do without This is a song for All the Good People

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Joybell
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 04:38 PM

Yes Mickey I love all of the songs I mentioned too, and I still sing all of them. The whole Irish thing puzzles me as well. If I feel I can relate to the sentiments in a good song I'll sing it, but songs become such good friends that you feel compelled to get to know them - and their roots, and the conditions around them that gave them birth. I'm doing great too, Mickey. Glad you are too! Joy

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST,Winston Wellington-Jones
Date: 16 Dec 03 - 12:15 AM

If I hear fecking "Danny Boy" one more time----!

(some heads are going to be broken)

"Amazing Grace" is also quite annoying, but I combat this by simply remembering a certain barmaid in Kent who had some quite extraordinary physical endowments, and then I rather enjoy it.

WW-J

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Dec 03 - 08:44 AM

There are "done to death" songs which are relatively new, and get sung around a lot for a time. And there are songs which are quite long in the tooth, or been traditional, and everyone assumes everyone knows them, and in fact you never hear them sung. And when someone actually sings them you get a shock of recognition. (Yes, and there are songs which have been around a long time and which get sung pretty often as well, but that's understood.)

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: fantum
Date: 17 Dec 03 - 07:10 PM

And the band played waltzing Matillda
Again and again and again.....
A really great song but every performer who wants to be on for hours gives it another whirl. I see from some of the above posts others share my views. And then the ever popular Summertime done as jazz done slow done with trills but most of all done to death. The wild rover and the Manchester rambler will send me on tour anyday. When they start this musical wallpaper my heart sinks my boredom chip activates and like a reptile in the cold I drift into torpor. It must be obvious to performers that these songs need a rest. Give us all a break learn something less well known. Please

Fantum

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 17 Dec 03 - 08:23 PM

Poppa Gator: I heard the Preservation Hall Jazz Band play in Westport, Connecticut a few years ago to a very well-healed, BMW audience. They finished their concert with When The Saints Go Marching In and invited the audience to march up onto the stage and around, and then march down the other side. The audience thought it was terminally cute, and there were more giggles than at an eleven year old's pajama party. I was one of the Saints who went marching outta there as fast as my feet could carry me.

Puhleeeeeeze!

Jerry

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Blackcatter
Date: 17 Dec 03 - 08:54 PM

I see two interesting things in the above posts.

1 Many posters are complaining that performers are singing the same old tired songs over and over.

2 Posters who are performers are complaining that audiences are constantly asking for the same old tired songs over and over.

Hmm . . .

What I see is that a lot of the general audience members only occasionally attend live performances of folk musicians and they are looking forward to the songs they know to be mixed in with ones they have never heard before. Plus, it's common knowledge that most musicians take requests, and some people almost feel duty bound to put in a request along with a few bucks to thank the performer.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 17 Dec 03 - 10:32 PM

Good points, blackcatter: From a performer's perspective, there are certain songs that you feel you almost HAVE to include in a concert. If you don't, people will ask why you didn't. Rick Nelson pretty much summed up that whole experience in Garden Party. I don't think that most performers mind singing their few songs that they've become identified with, as long as they can mix in new songs, and songs they do infrequently. The only catch is if you really get SICK of a song that people are often requesting. It can sometimes be hard to keep a song fresh and interesting to yourself, that you sing a lot.    Musicians who are on the road and do as many as 200 concerts a year (and I've known some) sometimes can sound like they're on auto-pilot singing the same songs night after night with the same introductions and the same rehearsed impromptu comments and asides. I don't blame singers for that. Being on the road is about as draining a way of life as there is, and people have to find some way to survive. Fortunately, most of us bask in relative obscurity, so we're not as likely to get sick of songs we perform.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Amos
Date: 17 Dec 03 - 11:25 PM

Oh, Jerry -- stay outta Westport Connecticut, man. It's has been invaded and overrun some thirty years since by aliens from another lifestyle, I yam here to tell ya!!

A

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Callie
Date: 18 Dec 03 - 12:50 AM

Maybe we could announce a ten year moratorium on these songs. With a decent break it will be nice to hear them again!

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: open mike
Date: 18 Dec 03 - 01:45 AM

i ws looking for the favorite christmas songs thread...
was going to post this when the cat went down..
now can't find the thread...part was pro/con little drummer boy
I am in the pro drummer camp!

funny, i would think musicians would appreciate
the sentiment in "Drummer", that the gift of music
is the best gift of all...

and i would have to vote for John McCutcheon's
song Christmas in the Trenches as the best all-
around song for the season. It tells the story
(true) of how music helped to bring an end to
war, if just briefly, and was a unifying factor
between soldiers on "both sides of the rifle"

the song that bothers me the most when sung in public
is "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" because they
usually enunciate the "sh" part and slur it til
it gets all mushy like figgy pudding...

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST,Johnny in OKC
Date: 18 Dec 03 - 01:56 AM

Every Twelve-bar blues.

I groan in agony with each predictable chord change.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Dec 03 - 08:25 AM

Flower of Scotland, sung drunkenly or requested drunkenly! Oh...sorry, I forgot the thread was about GOOD songs...

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 18 Dec 03 - 08:35 AM

Westport, Connecticut, by the way, is like the Rodeo Drive of the East in a pretentiously unpretentious sort of way. Paul Newman and Joan Woodward live there, among others. A few years ago, my Gospel Quartet sang at a Sunday brunch at a very exclusive Inn in downtown Westport. From what I remember, the Inn only has eight suites. We were given a tour of some of the suites by a friend of mine who was working there at the time, and they were luxuriant beyond belief. The cost per night was in the thousands off dollars. Movie stars and the jet set come up from New York City to stay there. Luther Vandross had brunch there one time when we were singing. I tried to get him to come up and do a gospel song, and we'd back him, but I guess we WERE kind of intimidating, and he declined the offer.. :-)

How do you know about Westport, Amos?

Jerry

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: KateG
Date: 18 Dec 03 - 11:31 AM

Actually, I grew up in Westport, Ct. But that was 35 odd (very odd) years ago, before it became a yuppie paradise. Yes there was money, but conspicuous consumption was definately frowned upon. Very few Cadillacs, lots of VW's. Can't recognize the place now...it looks like an upscale NJ mall, all sense of restraint long gone. To the best of my knowledge only one of my high school classmates still lives in the town.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 18 Dec 03 - 02:15 PM

"I hate to say it, but we were hoping you would do "Barrett's Privateers", as well as "The Unicorn", "Wild Rover", and "Streets of London""

Ya might get 2 outa 4... The Unicorn I refuse to even learn, and I've never done Streets Of London...

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Dec 03 - 07:52 PM

"We Wish You a Merry Christmas" - people always seem to miss out the last verse about "Or we'll break all your Bloody Winders", which I think is a pity, because it drives away the slush.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: MickyMan
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 05:54 AM

How about "Old Blue Suit", by Jerry Rasmussen. Kind of just kidding to get somebody's goat there, but the people I sing with did totally wore that one out in the 80's. We don't seem to sing it as much any more...but come to think of it , it qualifies as a great song that meant a lot to us for quite a while. Keep 'em comin', JR.
This thread has been very useful to me. I'm putting together some sets for gigging in an Irish/Celtic venue here in CT, USA. I'm getting some great ideas of what will go over well with audiences because the way I figure it... if everybody's sick of these wonderful songs then I should start doing them until I get sick of them too. I'll bet the listeners will love them, and I haven't done that much Irish/Celtic, so I will too.   Oh well, if they're good songs I won't mind, will I.
Now if you will please excuse me, I need to go work out "Puff, The Magic Dragon". Come on... you all know you loved it the first time you heard it.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 08:21 AM

No offense taken, Mickey. Just tell me where you live :-)

There are songs I've written that I still think are good, but I'm sick of singing them, myself. Robert's Rooster is one. I never sing it, unless I run into Naomi Solo. She loves that song, and I know I'll never get away with NOT singing it, when I see her.

Even good songs have to lie fallow. Sometimes for a lonnnnnh time.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST,guest tom
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 08:41 AM

If performers can't bring something new to a song ,something that expresses the spirit that went into the songs composition ,they should leave it alone . I used to think The Holy Ground had been nearly murdered by countless drunken renditions until I heard a young woman singing it in a bar, slowly and gracefully ,without the shouted Fine girl ye Are chorus.
Television adverts are the worst killers of songs . The First Time Ever I saw Your Face could survive Top of the Pops but not the British Gas ad. May it rest in peace

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 09:08 AM

Hey! Are you the legendary Crazy Man Mickey of Black Rock Turnpike fame, arisen from the Ashes? If so, I've missed you, buddy! I figure nobody else did Old Blue Suit once, let alone got sick of doing it unless it was the original ACSB.

PM me, will ya? Even if you aren't the legendary Crazy Man. You're still a fellow Nuttymega.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Peter Woodruff
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 02:24 PM

Whatever happened to the Dave Clark Five?

Peter

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 03:23 PM

Dave Clark Five is a song you're sick of... never heard it :-)

Jerry

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Big Mick
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 03:43 PM

It is important to acknowledge that the reason many of these songs are done to death is because they are wonderful songs. I delight in taking them and interpreting them my own way, and letting them wring the emotion out of a crowd that they were intended to do. I did this during my mini concert at the Getaway with "This Land". I was nervous as a cat about it, as I knew I would be in front of a very savvy group of folkies, but I wanted to see if I could take it back to the protest song it was originally intended to be. I think, and it is just my perception, that it worked.

I do The Streets of London as a "wake up, willya?" type of song, oft times substituting the name of a local town for effect. I make sure the arrangement is done in a way that makes one think.

Another song that I try and do a bit different is The Dutchman. It is done to death, but I try and almost act it out as a thespian would. And I only do it in the right venues. Truth be told, though, I am ready to let it lie fallow (to use Jerry's term) for a while now.

Just a little counterpoint.

Mick

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Rich from Milwaukee
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 07:16 PM

City of New Orleans
The Dutchman (sorry, Michael, I love the song but enough is enough)
Anything by John Denver or Gordon Lightfoot
Any song that received significant airplay (unless done in a creative fashion, e.g. Sons of the Never Wrong doing "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" as one part of three in a blend)

RfM

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Big Mick
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 07:28 PM

Yeah, Rich, I know. I guess I just enjoy trying to put a spin on it that makes even tired old folkies take notice.

But as I said, I have put it on the shelf for a while because I am tired of it.

Mick

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 07:32 PM

"When all men sing"... I wish they would bl***y wel shut the f**k up!
Danny Boy... I leave the room
I like Waltzing with Bears tho

No accounting for taste is there?

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 07:38 PM

Maybe the thing to do if a song seemns too overdone to sing it is take a trip to somewhere where they've never heard of.

Probably most of the songs mentioned in this thread are ones I've either never heard at all, or only heard live on a handful of occasions.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Snuffy
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 08:12 PM

Mick

Yes, Streets of London is an ANGRY song, not a sweet, melancholy thing. Do it right and the power is amazing.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Leadfingers
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 10:05 PM

The whole point is the WAY songs are done.If a really good song is done too slowly(or too fast) by the wrong singer, it can effectively
kill the song. And the Irish Song thing can be laid firmly at the door of those publishers of books that state 'The Irish Song Book' and then include songs written by Australians Scots and Americans.
AND of course where the song is performed.A Folk Club or Concert
Audience might not be impressed by your Wild Rover, but do it as part of an 'Entertainment' evening and the audience will be stomping along in time.
Innaccuracies and factual errors are what stops me doing some songs The Witches being an example, when the number of women killed by the Inquisition is usually greater than the population of Europe at the time of the Inquisition. And The Alamo -- Young Davy Crockett was about sixty wasnt he ?? Gawd I could rant on for ever but I must go and rehearse American Pie for my next Medieval Banquet.

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: GUEST,Working Men from Rita McNeil
Date: 10 Jun 04 - 06:26 PM

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Jun 04 - 08:01 PM

wouldn't any one of us be proud to have written any one of these songs?

As a songwriter I know I would

Subject: RE: Good Songs You're Sick Of
From: emjay
Date: 10 Jun 04 - 08:38 PM

WEll, as an audience member rather than a performer, I will be a lot more sensitive to the feelings of the performers. I'm afraid I have seldom given much thought to how many times they have done the song when I go to a concert wanting to hear it.
I've gone to one Peter, Paul and Mary concert, and they did sing Puff. One Pete Seeger concert and he did Abiyoyo. And so on. I am more grateful than ever after reading your posts, but it won't stop my wanting to hear them. Some are so familiar from having played them over and over but I've never heard them live and that is what I really want when I go to the concerts.
And how awful that I LIKE the maudlin ones. Fields of Athenry; Kilkelly, Ireland; The Band Played Waltzing Matilda; It doesn't say much for my depth of character, I guess, but I do go to a concert hoping to hear them, and most times there is someone there who has never heard the songs before. Just as I have never heard so many mentioned here.
Just think how fortunate you are that you can sing something people want to hear so much. Not just the song, but you the performer must be pretty good.