The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #5194   Message #279876
Posted By: Joe Offer
17-Aug-00 - 08:26 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Witch of the West-Mer-Lands (A Fisher)
Subject: This is a LYRICS site - post 'em!!!
Well, since Dick Greenhaus isn't here, let me say it for him - you could look in the Digital Tradition. Since the place name could be spelled many ways, it's a good idea to search for an exact phrase from the song that can't be spelled any other way. I put [witch of the] in square brackets in the search box, and this song (click) came right up. I e-mailed the lyrics to the requester.

I don't know what impressions other people have, but it seems that in the last few weeks, we've had a number of non-answers to song requests. People tell people they might be able to find the song in such-and-such a songbook which they might be able to find online for a hundred dollars if they're lucky. Somebody said that a song called "A-Rovin" is in the John Jacob Niles Ballad Book, but they neglected to tell what name Niles called it. Somebody asked for a gypsy song, and somebody responded that we should stop attacking gypsies - not knowing whether the song attacked gypsies or not. Other people are reluctant to post lyrics because maybe we're afraid that Harry Fox doesn't want us to post lyrics any more.
I think that if somebody requests lyrics that we have, we should provide a link or tell people exactly how to find the song. If we don't have the requested lyrics here at Mudcat, then we should post them.
At least, that's what I think. End of rant.
-Joe Offer-

(And I see that while I was ranting, Good Old George posted links to where the lyrics can be found, which is exactly what the rest of us should be doing.)