Whilst I realise that the majority of songwriters generally are men historically I wonder if many women have have encountered what I am finding?

There are so many good songs out there... brilliant songs with great words and tunes, but songs that do not easily covert around to a female angle/perspective. To me is seems so few songs can actually be turned from being sung from a man to be being sung from a woman. While most women would still sing a 'male song' I do find it hard to convert many songs spoken from a man to being spoken by a woman. Very often the language/words spoke by a man/men is different when the gender is changed. I am not talking about the more obvious shanty type songs and swashbuckling ones, which maybe can only be sung by men realistically (Wild Rover, Black Velvet Band, Whiskey in the Jar, etc)

Have many of the female singers out there encountered this? Allow me to give some examples...

Ride on (Christy Moore): Strong emotive song but not easily converted over as coming from a woman. The Town I loved So Well (Phil Coulter): another heartrending song but difficult to be from a female perspecive.

Changing the his/he's and hims to the her/she's and hers often will mean changing lots more words to feminise a song in a way as if coming from a woman BUT so many songs cannot be done that way even then, as they lose meaning.

So: Do men have a monopoly on more songs in folk than the women do? Of course this is not the men's fault but I do wish I had more songs open to me as many of the 'men's songs' seem so wonderful. Are some of the folk domains always to stay in the male arena? I guess some will for sure... because they have to

Converse to this. Do men ever wish they could sing some of the female orientated songs out there?

There are lots of 'gender neutral songs' too and I do rend to like many of them.

Thanks for any opinions, ideas and comments

mp