Well, I had pretty high hopes for this idea but I may have to give it up.

The karaoke machine is here now and it is fine. The tone is fine, the lyrics are large and clear enough, the controls are intuitive.

However. (Why is there always a 'however'?) There are perhaps 20 DVDs with a fairly wide variety - for people under 40, say; for this age group they are absurd: Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, I don't know who all but that will give you the idea. I don't remember the song titles but a song like 'Boom Boom Pow' got my attention.

There is one disk of Patsy Cline and one labelled 'country' with 'Okee from Muskogee' and 'King of the Road' the only titles I've ever heard of.

I called a couple of variety stores here in town and they don't carry Karaoke stuff. I also called a local bar that I know has Karaoke nights, asking them whether they would have some disks they would like to sell.

They don't use disks, they told me; theirs is all from the internet- and pretty 'spendy', she said.

I've looked at Amazon and they all seem to be 'Party Time' tunes. More Boom Boom Pow, no doubt.

What I've been looking for is folk-ish songs, songs that we grew up with, gospel songs (not so much hymns- gospel is rousing, I'm not interested in hymns), country songs, easy songs, sing along songs...

Anyone have any ideas?