Bob Dylan purportedly gave this advice to young songwriters: Don’t write songs with a lot of words; it’s hard to remember ‘em when you get old.
Aaron Neville has been touring, just himself with only piano accompaniment, performing mostly soulful ballads. A music stand close to Neville held a book of song lyrics which he referenced a few times.
Performing solo, John Hiatt stopped in the middle of a song, trying to remember the next lyric. Someone in the audience called out, “Just go ahead with it.” Hiatt responded that a person with obsessive-compulsive disorder couldn’t do that; he has to sing the song from beginning to end. After a few more beats, he smiled, nodded, then re-started the song from the beginning.
Even a much younger singer needs a little help remembering the words… or maybe it was just part of the act.
