Well, this thread comes close to being a BS thread, but it’s about songs, so I post above the line.

I always have liked folk music and songs and since long have tried to find the lyrics to all the songs I have on records, tapes , and, later, CDs. Songs mean more to me if I know what they are about.

One day in 1996, I discovered the internet. Someone showed me how to make a search using a phrase from a song or a song title. After the first dozen of searches I realised that the same ‘Digital Tradition’ came up in most of these searches. I then went to their alphabet section and for more than 12 hours without interruption scanned that list for missing lyrics.

It was (from the lyrics collector’s point of view) like Christmas and Easter falling on the same day (as we say in German). I think I found roughly 120 of my close to 350 missing lyrics on one day. The only comparable day in my life (once more, only seen from a collector’s point of view; otherwise there’d be several other days to compete) was my first day in the Cecil Sharp House library some years before.

A bit later I discovered that friendly people in the discussion forum shared their lyrics with requesters from all over the world. I learned how to do searches, where to find other lyrics sites, my transcription ability improved etc, so the list of missing lyrics decreased with the time.

Of course, new missing lyrics can be added to the list with each new recording bought, but I still have the original 1996 list with then close to 350 missing and I can see that with Jim McLean posting ‘The Big Three’ yesterday only ten missing songs are left from that original list after eight/nine years of mudcatting:

This for that
Up and rin awa, Geordie
Farewell to the Faroes
A mistake no doubt
Nancy Brown (by D. O’Connor; NOT the well know song with the same title)
Aikey Brae (The McCalmans sing it close to what’s given in that thread but they add a verse I can’t understand; I’m still after that one)

and four I’ve never asked for here:
Sweeter than sugar (“You are a thousand times sweeter than sugar”)
Brain jam (”My mind’s in a mess so my friends they all tell me”)
Morning after love (“it’s the morning after love and the night before loneliness”)
Emigrant (an awful title for a song search, I know, but the line “you hear the sounds of butterflies” is what differentiates it from the other ‘emigrant’ songs.

That’s not a lyrics req thread (I know I should put the titles in separate threads) though obviously I would be grateful for a hint or more. It’s a thank you to all those who have helped during these years. I’m grateful for that and I’m glad I could help sometimes as well.

And if you think I talk too much and who’d care about my personal list of still missing songs from 1996 I think you’re right.

Wolfgang