At the Folk-Legacy Festival that had Stan Rogers as the special guest (we had one non-Folk-Legacy artist every year), Jonathan Eberhart was trying to conduct a serious song-writing workshop. When he asked participants to tell why they had written a particualr song, Bill Staines said: "I'm a songwriter, and I realized that I hadn't written a song for a couple of months, so I sat down and wrote this one." (I have no recollection of which song he then sang.) Stan Rogers followed, in his super-macho manner, with "I wrote this song to get laid." (I have no recollection of which song he then sang, so please don't ask!)

I do remember that Eberhart was pissed, because he wanted some real answers to the question of what moves a person to create a song. Apparently, he was getting real answers and didn't realize it.

Yes, folks, it's true. I wooed my Caroline with the New England version of the "Riddle Song" that I mentioned in the thread about "Macaronic Songs," lo, these many moons ago, but I've never told Caroline that I once forced myself to learn and sing "Scarlet Ribbons" for lewd and lascivious reasons. That was years before I met her, of course. I don't think I've ever heard "Today," which clearly establishes the extent of my folk-purism in the early days of the great folk scare. Just today, Rick, someone called and was asking Caroline about "Seven Daffodils." I had to admit that I'd never heard it, either.

Sandy, the deprived former-fanatic.