Scott, there?s little to add to post, it says it all. Years back I talked to a singers-singer, she was good. To put it her words, she would first learn the story and the emotion attached to the lyric ? then she would memorize.

The first 10 to 20 years of my playing career, having music while performing was a no, no. Now at age 73 I felt all the songs I had memorized were gone from my memory. Not so, If I do not push it the lyrics seem to come from nowhere. For all you younger musicians I?m still going at 73, Hmmmmm! Not bad.

I remember years back, going through the lyrics of a song in my sleep, I knew every word. When I awoke they were gone. I know the lyrics are in there somewhere, but you can not push to hard, just let them flow. The other day I was singing a song I had not done since I was 10 years old, it was still there.

This is a good one---- Year after year I would sing and accompany myself with my guitar?I played sang and played pro guitar for many, many years.
Now if you were to ask me for a lyric I knew well, and had performed many times, and I did not have my guitar in hand, I stumbled. I needed the guitar to remember the lyric. WOW

Last thought?I could go over a lyric 20 times and not really know it, play it once on the band stand and I had it, it stayed with me.

Just me, John C.