This repository holds a collection of tunes, lyrics and lead sheets for music performed, or in some cases just appreciated, by a rare and select group of friends and acquaintances -- you know who you are. :-) If you have otherwise happened upon this archive, you are welcome to use the information herein for your own noncommercial, ethical and legal edification and amusement.
The main purpose of the repository is to be a central place to hold agreed upon versions of lyrics and chords and to serve as a reference for selections not performed very often. See the top page of the repository for more information.
The lyrics directory contains files of song lyrics. Each file contains one song. There may also be historical or performance notes included, as well as alternate versions of the lyrics when warranted. The files are plain text (*.txt) files compatible with the PC "notepad" program. There are three indexes of the files in the lyrics directory: one with Titles Only, and two with titles and authors. The lists directory contains set sheets, tune lists and other files. The new drectory contains recently submitted files that have yet to be checked into the repository. See the top page of the repository for more information.
The first few lines a a lyrics file have a definite format, to allow for the use of scripts that create the various indexes. The format is:
Lyrics files are named so that an alphanumeric ordering of the file names will result in the ordering of the titles that you would normally expect in an index or table of contents. Thus, beginning words such as "A" or "The" will usually not appear in a file name, but will be included in the file (and thus appear in the indexes) if they are part of the title. With those exceptions, all other words in a song's title will be present in the file name except where the title is very long. Blanks in the title will be replaced with underline characters ("_") in the file name. Other special characters such as apostrophes (" ' ") will be left out.
Lyrics are taken from various sources around the Net and from songbooks maintained by contributors that contain lyrics transcribed from recordings or learned from other singers and performers.
If there is any sense of an "official" version of a song, that version will appear here. There is often an amazingly wide variety of versions for traditional songs. In such cases, if one version is more popularly recognized, that version will be used. In some cases, multiple versions will be included. The original versions of some older songs and hymns may have many verses, only a few of which are now commonly performed. In those cases, all verses will be included in the repository with notes indicating which verses are usually sung.
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