"Just because Jim can remember words,he says those who cannot are lazy,or need help."
No I did not (I do wish people would respond to what I actually say) - I do say that those who can't remember words should not sit in from of an audience, particularly paying ones, and sing from prompt sheets if they can't remember the words on songs - absorbing the songs comes with the job description.
I suggest that it is possible to acquire the ability to learn and remember songs - that's where the help comes in, and that applies to all aspects of singing that some people may have difficulty with.
I would love to have been a musician, I tried, reached a certain point and got no further, so I gave up - at no time did I ever consider inflicting my guitar, concertina or flute on an audience.
Why on earth should I or anybody do so with singing?
I repeat - I have not got a good memory, but songs come with built in aides to help memorise them - rhyming systems, speech patterns, plots and tunes - all part of absorbing the song as an entire entity, not just a set of words.
Not being able to remember is not "lazy" - not working on a song enough to sing it is, and singing it in front of an audience if you are unable to do that is unacceptable - every audience deserves a level of performance - not virtuoso standard, but high enough to be able to enjoy listening to the singing.
I spent well over twenty years listening to MacColl sing - I watched him grow old on stage and eventually begin to forget words.
I never once saw him make a balls-up on stage from totally drying-up on the text.
If he forgot the words as he had learned them, he had absorbed the songs and the language they were written in so well that he just made up the bits from his own pool of understanding.
We all dry up at times, so hopefully, we make sure it doesn't happen too often by putting the work in.
Jim Carroll