Amanda -

I see you've been busy posting while I've been busy editing. Please don't ever believe I would ignore you or anyone else here. What I don't know has filled a lot of books, and I am humbled and gratified that folks here donate a portion of their lives to read my posts and respond when there are probably one or two other things they could find to fill the void. I am delighted to be accepted as part of the collective mind on this board.

As regards your suggestions:

Still working on chiggers, etc. The a capella verse is done almost like a field holler, and I don't want to overly refine it, but I do acknowledge the repetition and agree it needs to go. "MY" Mississippi mud doesn't work for me. The personal pronoun localizes the song too much for it to pertain to the South as a region.

v2 & v3 - duly noted and smoothed a bit

v4 - This comment from you, who writes for a living, I consider to be a hilite of my career. I am pleased, much.

v5 - I cannot hope to improve on your rewrite, so I kept it. Bless you.

Kudzu is not an "are". it is an "it". A long vine with large spade shaped leaves, native to Japan, planted across the South in the 1930s for erosion control. It grows up to 18 inches per day, and I have seen two accounts from people who said they marked a spot and sat, and in an hour it had grown visibly beyond the mark. Wild animals don't eat it, and it completely covers fields, houses, barns, junkyards, and anything else in its vicinity with vines 70-80 feet long. I would almost bet you can find it growing just outside NYC in the farmland to the south (where else?).

I have never thought of this as commercial. It would be nice, yes, but who would do it?

Thanks for the help. I hope we're buddies again. cue

[This message has been edited by cuebald (edited 01-27-2006).]

http://www.soundclick.com/mikeamason