You misunderstand me, Naemanson. I don't believe I said the songs in RUS are "inaccurate." What I meant to say that of the ten or fifty or a hundred versions of a song available from a variety of sources, I was sorry they hadn't selected "better" versions -- more poetic, more complete, etc. I'm talking about traditional songs here, you realize. Of the recently written songs with known composers I assume they have gathered "accurate" texts from the original sources. I may have been singing a particular version of a traditional song for many years, but I'm well aware that other versions are equally "authentic" and may appeal to someone more than the one I have chosen to learn. I really enjoy hearing and comparing different versions of a song.

There's a thread running right now about "The Foggy Dew." I sing three very different versions of that song myself, and love each of them for one reason or another. I know another version (the one I first learned some fifty years ago) that I really DON'T like and never sing anymore, and I've meant to learn a fifth version for a number of years (good intention, yet to be realized) that I think I may like even more than all the others. None of these is more "accurate" than the rest.

Ian Robb once made the point (in his SING OUT! column) that if you like a song well enough to sing it, you ought to like it well enough to LEARN it, and then you could leave the book at home. Makes sense to me.

The old folk fogey, ranting on.