In a comment after the live YouTube recording, Ted Lightfoot said, "I love hearing this Ric's way --not the way the UU hymnbook commission "fixed" it. I just wish it had lyrics so that people would read "bare the pain" (not "bear the pain" as it is often mistakenly printed)."

Sure enough, the song is #311 in the Unitarian Universalist hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition (1993). Let's see what they did with it.

LET IT BE A DANCE
(Ric Masten)

CHORUS
Let it be a dance we do.
May I have this dance with you?
Through the good times and the bad times too,
Let it be a dance.

Let a dancing song be heard.
Play the music, say the words,
and fill the sky with sailing birds.
Let it be a dance. Let it be a dance. Let it be a dance.
Learn to follow, learn to lead,
feel the rhythm, fill the need
to reap the harvest, plant the seed.
Let it be a dance.
CHORUS

Everybody turn and spin,
let your body learn to bend,
and, like a willow with the wind,
Let it be a dance. Let it be a dance. Let it be a dance.
A child is born, the old must die;
a time for joy, a time to cry.
Take it as it passes by,
Let it be a dance.
CHORUS

Morning star comes out at night,
without the dark, there is no light.
If nothing's wrong, then nothing's right.
Let it be a dance. Let it be a dance. Let it be a dance.
Let the sun shine, let it rain;
share the laughter, bear the pain,
and round and round we go again.
Let it be a dance.
CHORUS


Well, the UU hymnal version is almost the same as Ric's performance, except that Ric's book has "bare the pain" and the hymnal has "bare," which is indeed more powerful but sounds identical....