Lots of my older singer friends are returning to lead sheets, teleprompters, personal assistants, and audience participation to make it through the songs they used to be able to sing from memory. Merritt did it for the last three years of his life -- first sheepishly, and then later on with aplomb. Faith Petric has used paper off and on since she had a stroke and sometimes she just points and asks someone else to sing the next one. Dick Holdstock whips out the reading glasses, or borrows a pair from his wife, and proceeds with the song,
there's a lot of ways of making it though, and those of us boomers in our fifties are counting on you olders to model for us "not giving up when the going gets rough". I'd say, if you can still sing from your heart, you don't have to still know it by heart.

My life flows on in endless song
Above earth's lamentation;
And still I hear the far off song
That hails the new creation.
Through sight may blur and memory fail
Inside me music's ringing --
When it resounds throughout my soul,
How can I keep from singing?

Blessings,
Barbara