Maybe it’s just me, but I’m irritated by lyrics that don’t scan – specifically where the emphasis is awry.

You’ve written the music – and I’m assuming that generally it precedes the words – and you’re going to go to the trouble of recording it. Why, then, do you try and cram an ill-scanning word in instead of choosing another, better fitting one? Or, if the phrase is of such importance, save it intact for a tune where the emphasis fits the metre.

I mean, Kilimanjaro rising like Olympus above the Serrr-en-ge-tee` is kind of annoying, but I don’t listen to Toto much. My enjoyment of KT Tunstall’s great Other Side of the World, however, is definitely tempered because of her ty`-ered ex-cu-ses`. Del Amitri’s Nothing Ever Happens has four – four! – mangled words in as many minutes.

I know it sounds like a grumpy old man thing. Sorry about that. But to me, a lyric that truly doesn’t scan shows a lack of craft.

If there's one album which I'd love to see reissued it's the 1972 self-titled album by Spring (or American Spring, as they were known outside the USA).

They comprised Brian Wilson's wife, Marilyn, and her sister, Diane Rovell. Brian produced the album. I've only heard those tracks which are on youtube, but they are really something special. Their take on Dennis Wilson's 'Forever' is, to my ears, even better than the Beach Boys version.

Other tracks like Sweet Mountain, Superstar and Tennessee Waltz (also on youtube) are equally lovely.

Does anyone, more knowledgable than me in these areas, know whether it's likely to become available anytime? Has anyone else been seduced by these few beautiful songs?

My college in London, in the early ‘80s, had a small but diverse record library – actually mostly cassette tapes (records were probably too fragile for the student hordes; CDs were yet to come). I won’t go as far to say that my musical tastes were formed there, but – gosh – they were certainly broadened. I’m sure their copy of Sandy Denny’s The North Star Grassman and the Ravens must have been rendered transparent by our flat’s primitive cassette recorder.

Later on, the record libraries at Edinburgh’s George IV Bridge, Hertford, and Hatfield’s central library were sources of rich pickings – not necessarily in rock/pop, which tended often to the mainstream, but classical, jazz and folk. What’s more, all for a modest fee, at a time when I wasn’t exactly flush.

Does anyone else share my gratitude for record libraries, and are there any particular gems you were exposed to therein?

George was always my favourite Beatle. Partly because he was the youngest and hence closest in age to me, partly because he looked so damn cool in the picture on the reverse of my sister’s mid-70s reissue of Hey Jude (they made it a hit, you know).

Mostly though, I think it was because he was the Quiet One. I was a bit quiet too – I liked my music and my books - and so I identified with him. Later too, I also felt more affinity with those more in the background – John Paul Jones say, or Richard Wright. I'm sure there are a few more examples you could name.

So were you like me, happy in the shadows? Or were you up front in your heads, with the alpha males and females, as John and Paul, Roger, Chrissie or Jimmy?

Further to the Best Of/Worst Of in this month's Word, those of us who grew up north of the border will recall that probably the most 'popular' music show in the 70's/80's was Thingummyjig. Popular in the sense that it was prime time on STV. Popular in no other sense, unless tartan kitsch, heedrum-hodrum music and ersatz barn dances are your thing.

Anyway, here, for your delectation, is today's Dylan cover version. 'I'll Be Your Baby Tonight', by the one and only (please God) Flying Haggis.

A certain record came on the radio when I was in the car yesterday, and as usual I sang along (I was alone; no innocents were harmed).

It struck me afterwards that I had been singing along to the backing, not the main vocals. I guess that I must always have done so with this particular song, and I realised that there are a fair number of other songs where I do the same.

Any lip-reading onlooker would have been able to decipher that what was coming out of my mouth – I hesitate to use the word ‘singing’ – was:

“Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh,
Just a little bit, just a little bit, just a little bit, just a little bit,
Ooh, ooh, ooh,
Just a little bit, just a little bit, just a little bit, just a little bit,
Just a just a just a just a just a just a just a just a just a little bit, just a little bit,
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh,
Re re re re re re re re re-spect, just a little bit, just a little bit
Sock it to me (x8), just a little bit (x6),
Re re re re re re re re re-spect, just a little bit, just a little bit” (to fade)

[Fraser, if this breaches copyright, feel free to delete!]

Am I the only one who sings along to the backing? Is this a measure of how good the backing vocals are on a particular track? Anyone else have any favourites?

There's a reference in this month's Best/Worst Love Songs to Adrian Gurvitz's 'Classic'. For those who have not read/heard it, Gurvitz rhymes 'classic' 'attic' and 'addict' in three consecutive lines. Nice going, Mr G!

This led me to ponder other examples of lyrics whose rhymes push the boundaries. Some do it on purpose - Squeeze being a prime example. Songs such as Labelled With Love use half-rhymes throughout (bottle/hovel etc) - carrying on in the tradition of poems like Louis Macneice's Bagpipe Music.

Others should know better (I'm talking to you here, Mr Dylan, with your 'light I never knowed/dark side of the road)*.

I'm particularly fond of Gary Byrd's 'The Crown' where he rhymes 'blink' and 'sphinx'. Huzzah!

Anyone else have any favourites?

* I'm steeled for the response from Zimmophiles telling me that any fule knows that this is a brilliant, if oblique, reference to Jack Kerouac/Blind Lemon Jefferson/Rimbaud, and not just a clumsy rhyme with 'road'

Time to own up. I was involved in home-taping. And we know what the adverts said was the result.

It started off on the easy stuff –the radio. You never forget the first time, and mine was hard to beat. John Peel’s festive 50 of 1978. A Philips 590 transistor radio. My portable cassette recorder, its in-built microphone – about the size of a penny piece – placed next to it. No direct connection, just a blanket thrown over to keep extraneous sound out. The family downstairs warned to stir out of their seats at their own peril for four nights in a row (I missed 50-41). The adrenaline rush as the C90 approached the end of each side: will this song finish before it runs out? Is there enough left for another song? If so, please let it be a punk/new wave shortie and not something lasting 12 minutes by Van Morrison.

Thence to the hard stuff – records. A borrowed double live album off a friend’s older brother – Made in Japan, The Song Remains the Same, Live and Dangerous. Will all four sides fit on a C90 or is it a C120 job? OK – time to jack up, a 5-pin DIN connector needed. Write the tracks on the insert, or make your own artwork. Sometimes all you have to hand is a pre-recorded cassette you no longer want to keep – time to get busy with the sellotape over the snap-off recording protector.

So to the record companies – I’m sorry. I did go on to buy all the records anyway (and the remasters, and the Deluxe editions etc etc) but how you staggered on into the CD age I don’t know.

I hope the statute of limitations has expired, or else I may ask for a file to be slipped into my next subscription edition of the Word.

Anyone else for absolution?

I'm not a huge fan of the honours system, but now and then I cannot disagree with it. Congratulations to Joe Brown on his MBE.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090612/tuk-so-thrilled-by-mbe-says-joe-bro...

'For services to music'. And to the exercise of tear ducts during the Concert for George, if I may say so.