Lyrics again - not just my obsession?

I love it that so many like lyrics too but it has certainly proven rather more of an interest than I imagined. I thought, when I first mentioned the matter, that all was doing was setting myself up for ridicule because it was merely of foible of mine.
It would seem that I was much mistaken. I will try to do my best but the list of requests is becoming as interesting as it is daunting, even for those that I have a reasonable chance of doing.  Here is today's list and they are all from albums that I have mentioned before and thus have only myself to blame.


'The Green Fields Of Canada' - Planxty (1974)
'Don't Say A Word' - Phantom Limb (2008)
Deranged - Stacee Lawson (2008)
That's a whole album, 'Deranged', and two songs. That is quite a lot of lyrics to do, so please don't expect them tomorrow!


Stacee Lawson's 'Deranged' includes a rather worthwhile cover of Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians' 'What I Am', originally from the equally worthwhile album 'Shooting Rubber Bands At The Stars' (1988).
Phantom Limb, while from Bristol more or less, are in LA and recording their second album.
The Facebook site I use-music-as-an-escape-from-my-problems has its merits too but is struggling, if not for attention then certainly diversity.  If anyone feels like writing a bit about music; any music that you like is just fine (or even that which you don't), and why, please feel free to join in and add something.  It is not a scary prospect, I can assure you of that, and if you choose to add something slightly challenging then that is all the better.

What I am is what I am, are you what you are, or what?

For the last couple of weeks I've spent much of my time thinking about, and listening to, all the new music I have come across in 2008. That is interesting in itself but it has made me think more generally about about the ways in which music evolves - why certain things come round again and how and why they are reinvented or recycled.
Things crossing my mind currently include my favourite singles of 2008, particularly widely successful ones and for a reason, also a top ten of cover versions from 2008, and why I think both topics matter.

One of the cover versions that I really like is a bit like a comet - it comes back to shine brightly every ten years and so - thus at least for those under twenty-something it will probably always be associated with Emma Bunton and TinTinOut (for whom it was a 1999 UK single). It was originally written by Edie Brickell and Kenny Withrow and appeared on the 1988 album 'Shooting Rubber Bands at the Stars', which was the début by Texan band Edie Brickell and The New Bohemians.
It has appeared once again in 2008 as one of the few covers on 'Deranged', the self-released début album by West Virginian singer-songwriter Stacee Lawson.

I like this version of 'What I Am' to bits and actually most of the rest of the album too - it came within a whisker of being included on the second of the two lists of Albums of 2008 that I posted last week.