The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #167205   Message #4030033
Posted By: Joe Offer
24-Jan-20 - 08:15 PM
Thread Name: nic jones canadeeio
Subject: RE: nic jones canadeeio
Howard Jones, you're right that one would think that a performer's songbooks and Website would have definitive lyrics and correct attribution - but that's not the case. I had to fight that out when I was working on the Rise Again songbook, because my editor wanted to believe the lyrics from performer websites. In fact, he originally thought we could use a "bot" to harvest lyrics from the Internet, and just print what we harvested. I had to prove to him that the Internet and many performer websites are horribly inaccurate - even some of the lyrics performers would e-mail to us were illiterate and inaccurate.

I've learned that many performer websites took lyrics from fan sites, and didn't edit or correct them in any way. When I did the songbook, I tried to find at least two printed sources and verify them with at least two recorded versions of every song. And even then, I made some mistakes that will embarrass me for the rest of my life. They're in print now, and it costs too damn much to correct them.
Never trust lyrics from the Internet, even from the Mudcat Cafe - always verify them. Even sheet music can be wrong.

-Joe-