I think I'm the main songwriter Bill D is talking about, and I assume it's as interesting on the outside as it is on the inside, as I try to remember why I changed the rhyme word and, since I did, what the @#$!! is the new one? And how do I get the extra three syllables out of the rhythm to make the new line work?

And when I look up the "documented" copy, I find I made changes, often improvements, while singing, but neglected to put 'em in the printed version. An example came up in Church two Sundays ago -- I was singing "Barabbas Laughed," and had the line

"Shameful, grievous death his fate" -- but I'd been singing it with an internal rhyme:
"A Shameful, painful death his fate" but had never written down the improvement.

I do this all the time, make changes that I never document, so when I'm looking it up years later, I forget the improved version, or, as Bill points out, get half-way through the improved one and revert to the clunky lyric I once wrote. This is less true of tunes, though. My tunes are often enough borrowed from tradition or Stephen Foster, so they don't change much. But they have, now and then.

But, yes, I also clean forgot that I wrote a given song, as I troll through my folder of lyrics. And then there are the unfinished ones (though most songwriters admit that no song is finished, some just escape) where I not only can't recall what tune (if any) I had settled on, but dang! I thought I had gotten past the bridge -- now how'm I gonna finish it? What was I thinking?

Bob Clayton