The Word - Vol 6

Do you take requests?

When you’re reading this, I must confess, I’m lying on the beach in Huatulco Mexico.  The place where this story began.  It was an annual trip to Mexico with some close friends and the tale ends up with a string band that doesn’t play requests.  Let me explain.
Every year for about 16 years we gathered some friends together for a winter getaway to Mexico.  We soaked up the sun for a week and recharged the batteries after a busy Christmas season.  

Each night at the resort, the group would get together in the outside bar, and being music lovers, someone would invariably start to sing a song.  Usually a classic song from the ’60s.  We would all join in and often get through the first verse, and the chorus, but then we would struggle to remember the following verses and the song would sputter to a finish.  This seemed to happen all the time.  

One year I decided to write out the lyrics to a bunch of old songs, and I took them along on the holiday.  After dinner, in the bar, I passed the song sheets out, and it became almost like a caroling choir, but instead of Christmas songs, it was old favourites.  And it was fun.  The songs started and finished, not always in key, but at least we could get through the entire song.    

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