Considering how much blithering cheese the contestants are allowed to get away with (or, really, rewarded for) I always find it amusing that the one unforgivable sin on Idol seems to be forgetting the words. Yes, I know--you should be able to memorize one song a week if you're a real performer. And yes, the fact that actual real performers learn their songs a little less cold-bloodedly means nothing. Gloryhound, for God's sake, seems to be able to nail a new song in an afternoon and there are five of them learning parts. Just learning the lyrics should be a snap.

I suspect the attendant bullshit that fills these kids' time can interfere with rehearsal time--I mean, those awful Ford commercials would take a while.

But I also find it awfully hard to get all up in arms about a singer fluffing a lyric every now and then. Bryan Adams once choked on the national anthem. Yes, "O Canada." At a hockey game. Something distracted him, he lost his place, and he tee-totally blew it. And you can't tell me Bryan Adams doesn't know the words to "O Canada."

Adam from Gloryhound--well, I probably shouldn't say this, but I always think he must have been the kind of small child who never got away with anything, because when he forgets a lyric he always confesses--"Shit! Sorry!"--and then regroups. Probably just as well he's not on Idol, actually, but let's just say Jason Castro is not the only Bob Dylan fan to ever muff a Bob Dylan lyric.

My favourite "I forgot the lyrics" moment involved Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor, the lead singers of Blue Rodeo, in a television interview. The interviewer wanted to play a little game called "Name the song," so she read out isolated lines from various Blue Rodeo tunes and Greg and Jim were supposed to name the song the line came from.

And Cuddy could not do it.

Now, Cuddy could name every one of Keelor's lyrics, but he didn't get a single one of his own until the interviewer threw him one from his just-released solo record. He got that one, barely, but the ones he had been singing for years almost didn't register. And yes, once in a while he fluffs a line in a show. Who cares? (Keelor knew all his own lyrics as well as his partner's. And yet he always appears to be the more addled of the two.)

During the tour for The River, Bruce Springsteen got into the habit of letting the audience sing the first verse of "Hungry Heart." That tradition began one night early in the tour when the song started and Bruce dried up totally--just lost all the words, and the audience filled in. I don't know if that's how Greg Keelor got into the habit of letting the audience sing the first verse of "Hasn't Hit Me Yet," but I would not be surprised.

So, while Idol contestants do a lot of things that cause me to cringe, forgetting lyrics hardly registers. It might be unprofessional, but it happens to the pros, and it often has nothing to do with whether they know the song.