One of the best concerts I ever saw was a late night festival side stage with Adam Again. Their set list included a half a dozen songs from their most recent album, Dig, but the audience was screaming for more so the band went on to perform the rest of the songs from that album. Trouble was, they hadn’t rehearsed those songs and Gene Eugene couldn’t remember all the lyrics to some of them. The audience helped him along and then some tossed him the lyric sheet from the cassette recording so when he needed to he would squint at the really tiny type to remind himself what the next verse was.
I have seen Keith Richards (no surprise there!) Aretha Franklin, Eartha Kitt, Shania Twain, -and a hundred other artists you all have probably never heard of*- do this. I’ve also done it myself.
I have to dispute the interpretation that it means the artist doesn’t care, or hasn’t prepared. Of course it could be that in some cases. When it’s happened to me, it’s generally at the end of a particularly meaningful phrase when my heart is really in to it and suddenly I realize that I’ve lost my place in the song.
For those who perform four times every week, I imagine it’s more like they wake up from automatic pilot, like when you’re brushing your teeth and suddenly can’t remember if you did the top row yet.
*Sean Nos and Bluegrass singers, mostly
I’ve heard it is a rather remarkable event when Richards actually gets the lyrics to “You Got the Silver” right ;).
I bet nobody walked out of this performance.
Would that every performer had the aplomb (and talent) to pull this off…
Bless you for posting that! I was going to have to go home and check my CD cabinet to remember who it was!
:smack: 
At least with Shane Mcgowan towards the end of his years with the Pogues, you didn’t notice when he got the words wrong. Because you couldn’t understand a damn thing he was saying to begin with.
As far as shows I was actually in the audience for, I saw several acts who appeared too drunk or stoned (the Replacement, Steve Miller), but the most stunning was seeing 10,000 Maniacs with Natalie Merchant. She was singing “Headstrong” (from the Blind Man’s Zoo Lp), and started 'hmmming, hmmming, hhhmmming" singing. A girl I was said to me “She can’t remember the words!” And as I watched, I realized I could see her looking out at the audience, as if trying to follow along the people singing in the front row!
About halfway through the song, she simply gave up. She turned to the band, literally threw her hands up in the air, and brought the song to an abrupt halt. Then she said to the audience “I’m sorry, I can’t finish this song. I don’t remember the words.” There was a stunned pause in the audience, and a few people were just about to start heckling when the band launched into the next song.
Oddly enough, she DID remember all the words to “Don’ t Go Back to Rockville”, which is a song she didn’t even write!
Then there is the famous example of Ella Fitzgerald, who was in the midst of recording a live record and, mid-song, blanked out on the words for the song Mack the Knife. She began ad-libbing lyrics, and Ella being Ella, was charming enough to pass it off.
The only concerts I ever go to are of performers I know personally and care about, so I’d be concerned more than anything else.
Only barely tangential to the OP, but my very favorite bit in Jimi Hendrix’s Isle of Wight concert (I think that’s the one) is when he’s doing “All Along the Watchtower” and says “Yes, I know I missed a verse, it’s alright.”
Oh, it wasn’t just at live shows. Dave regularly forgot lyrics in the studio, and you can HEAR that on any number of records.
In their cover of Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman,” he forgot the words to the bridge. He shortened “Cause I need you, I’ll treat you right. Come with me baby, be mine tonight” into “Cause I need you, need you tonight.”
On their cover of Betty Everett/Linda ROnstadt’s “You’re No Good,” he turns “I’ll beg his forgiveness on bended knee; I wouldn’t blame him if he said to me…” into “Don’t come back, don’t come running to me, I wouldn’t blame them if they set you free.”
Listen to “Everybody Wants Some.” Can you figure out what the first line of the second verse is? NOBODY can. Dave babbled nonsense because he couldn’t remember the words he himself had written.
Historically, when Dave forgot lyrics in concert, he just did one of his patented “Ian-Gillan-Meets-the-Ohio-Players” screams.
Saw Al Green (whom I have truly loved since the 1970s) sing at the Monterey Jazz Festival. He did “Sitting on the dock of the bay,” not his of course, but he couldn’t remember any words other than “Sitting on the dock of the bay.” He kept turning the mic out to the crowd but they weren’t doing any better. Awkward moment.
Excellent link. Thanks! She didn’t miss a beat!
Three of us went to see Willie Nelson. Willie was very late and very drunk. One of us left in disgust, and gave his ticket to a bum on the street. A fellow from the nosebleeds came down to sit in the vacant seat. The bum from the street came in to sit in the seat. A fight broke out between the two of them, which became quite a donnybrook once other spectators joined in. My remaining friend and I made our way out through the fight without being hurt. Moral of the story: country and western is pathetic, so best not attend in the first place rather than have to figure out when best to walk out.
I guess this is not an uncommon occurrence. I’m not much of a concert-goer, maybe 10-20 ever, but years ago I saw Dan Fogelberg in San Francisco at the Cow Palace. Singing Leader of the Band, he forgot the lyrics, paused briefly, apologized, and then continued with the rest of the song.
I think some people are better at memory than others. Some are more adept at it, while others aren’t. Even though you’re a musician and have performed a song many times, if you’re the type that doesn’t have excellent memory I guess it’s bound to happen. My wife tells me I have uncanny memory with some things. I’m now in my middle-aged years but used to play the violin as a kid. I haven’t touched one in over four years, and only then was just for a few minutes, but I was able to play from memory some songs I used to play.
But then, I can’t remember something my wife told me just 10 minutes ago. (As we say in the software business, that’s a feature and not a bug. :D)
As someone who’s been in church choir practically his entire life, I disagree with Dchord568’s implication that someone looking at their music while singing can’t display the requisite level of sincerity (while acknowledging that songs intended as performance and those intended to lead a worship service are not equivalent).
Thank you for the replies. I learned that forgetting lyrics happens. Probably when it happens, we remember more the event. So, it is a good thing.
Some years ago, Irish singer Mary Black performed here in Austin. Early in her career, she sang mostly traditional, old-fashioned Irish folk songs. Later, she moved on to a more pop-oriented sound.
During the show, one girl in the audience called out a request for “Annachie Gordon,” an old, weepy, and rather long Scottish folk song she’d done early in her career. Initially, Mary laughed, “Ah jeez, we haven’t done that one in years, and I’m not sure I can even remember the lyrics. Sorry, love, but there’s no chance.”
But… after the intermission, she and her band came back on stage, and she said they’d actually TRY to do the song. Mary did a nice job vocally, but not surprisingly, she forgot some of the words. Nobody really minded, and she got a huge hand for making the effort.
Classical musicians routinely use sheet music for live performance. I’m not sure why pop musicians should be held to a higher standard when performing long sets.
Friend of mine was at a ‘Mats show around ’83 or ’84 and they were all shitfaced and mangling Radio Free Europe. Somebody in one of the front rows yelled “I didn’t pay fifteen bucks to watch you guys get drunk and play songs you don’t even know.”
It always depends on who. I couldn’t go, but when the members of Genesis got back together with Peter Gabriel for a benefit concert (to raise money for WOMAD) a friend went and he said that Gabriel would often look down at the people in the front row who were singing along to everything. They all knew the words so he’d look to them if he’d forget every now and then. My friend traveled halfway across the world to see the reunion.
It happened to my gal Hap once. I not only paid to see her, I traveled halfway across the country to see her (Chicago to Philly). But it was a bit of a thrill when she forgot the words, because she looked right at me when it happened. I first mouthed the words, then said them outloud, but by then she’d picked up the lyrics she’d missed and sang the next sequence. Her mouthed “thank you” was something I didn’t even see until I later saw the video.