What's with this trend which seems so prevalent at singarounds these days where people come trotting along with song books and/or files full of lyrics and insist on singing from them all night? I'm not referring to the odd glance at them as a refresher during the course of the evening but actually sitting there and singing song after bloody song out of them sometimes introducing the item with: " Here's a new one from me.." or " I've been working on this one all week.."

Ye gods!! We've all probably referred to scribbled crib sheets in our time or taped the odd verses first lines to a guitar but come on.....

A friend of mine made the point that this is just the same as a musician reading from the dots but I'm not too keen on that at a session either...

Our songs and tunes have evolved through interpretation and 'folk memory'--half the fun is working on a song or a tune and making it, to some degree, your own...I know some of us can retain lyrics and tunes better than others but surely if you feel strongly enough about a song tp sing it in the first place it's got to be worth the effort of learning it.

Slightly puzzled.................Harry.