Justice can be weird. Wait, make that justice *may* be weird. Which is a shade different. Or maybe not. News flash: A federal judge in NEW YORK has stripped the first verse of "WE SHALL OVERCOME" of its copyright—I had no idea copyrights could be granted on a per-verse basis, but that shall be a different subject for a different day—on the grounds the writer who changed the lyrical hook of an old spiritual from "we will overcome" to "we shall overcome" had made a trivial substitution that "lacks originality" and was therefore not entitled to a new copyright. Like many people, I have concerns about the use and abuse of copyright. But this is about something else. This is about the art of songwriting. Try rewriting KENDRICK LAMAR's "sit down, be humble" as "sit down, be modest" and see how far you get in the 2017 pop zeitgeist. Or try changing ED SHEERAN's "I'm in love with the shape of you" to "I'm in love with the frame of you" and good luck with that. Words matter. Every single word. "We shall" and "we will" do not sound the same in a song, do not carry the same power, do not mean the same thing. We don't need a judge for that. We have history for that. Whether editing "will" to "shall" in one of the 20th century's great civil right anthems is deserving of more than a half-century of copyright, I'm not here to say. But call that edit trivial and I shall complain, loudly, that you are missing the very essence of the song you are judging. And you are misunderstanding how music works... Hugs to NASHVILLE, which lost two members of the GRAND OLE OPRY Friday. DON WILLIAMS was one of the last of the great urbane honky-tonk balladeers, if that's even a thing, and if you can make a hit out of a song that goes, "those Williams boys they still mean a lot to me/Hank and Tennessee," then I say it's a thing. His classicist crooner spirit will live on in the voices of inheritors like CHRIS STAPLETON and ALAN JACKSON... TROY GENTRY, killed in a helicopter crash en route to a gig in NEW JERSEY, was the smooth, higher-voiced half of MONTGOMERY-GENTRY, whose hits came a quarter-century later. They may have been more well versed in SKYNYRD and SPRINGSTEEN than either of those two Williams boys, and they may have been more likely to rock a honky-tonk than croon to it, but that's the passage of time for you, and they were equally fierce protectors of their Southern roots. Their "SHE COULDN'T CHANGE ME" is the happy-ending sequel to Williams' plaintive "IF HOLLYWOOD DON'T NEED YOU," a reminder that home is most often where country's heart is. RIP... A TRIBE CALLED QUEST's headlining set Saturday night at ENGLAND's BESTIVAL was "our last show ... ever," Q-TIP told the festival crowd while paying his respects to the late PHIFE DAWG. ATCQ's final song? "WE THE PEOPLE..." Respect. MusicSET: "Last Waltzes: Artists Say Goodbye"... What's your favorite music movie? Asking for a friend... KELIS' milkshake recipe... More hugs: to BROADWAY, which lost songwriter MICHAEL FRIEDMAN, best known for the deliciously satirical BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON... RIP also SEAN DELEAR, ANTHONY "BUBBLES" TORRES and, his deeds here on earth notwithstanding, RICK STEVENS.