hiː bɪɡˈæn ɪɾ ɪn ɚɹˈaʊnd nˈaɪntiːnhˈʌndɹɪd sˈɛvənti æz ɐ pˈɜːsənəl pɹˈɑːdʒɛkt, lˈɪstɪŋ ðə sˈoːɹs sˈɪŋɚ ɪf nˈoʊn, ðɛɹ loʊkˈælᵻɾi, ðə dˈeɪt ʌv nˈoʊɾɪŋ ðə sˈɔŋ, ðə pˈʌblɪʃɚ bˈʊk ɔːɹ ɹᵻkˈoːɹdᵻd sˈoːɹs, plˈʌs ˈʌðɚ fˈiːldz, ænd kɹˈuːʃəli ɐsˈaɪnɪŋ ɐ nˈʌmbɚ tʊ ˈiːtʃ sˈɔŋ, ɪŋklˈuːdɪŋ ˈɔːl vˈɛɹiənts nˈaʊ nˈoʊn æz ðə "ɹˈaʊd nˈʌmbɚ"tʊ ˌoʊvɚkˈʌm ðə pɹˈɑːbləm ʌv sˈɔŋz ɪnwˌɪtʃ ˈiːvən ðə tˈaɪɾəlz wɜː nˌɑːt kənsˈɪstənt əkɹˌɑːs vˈɜːʒənz.
He began it in around 1970 as a personal project, listing the source singer (if known), their locality, the date of noting the song, the publisher (book or recorded source), plus other fields, and crucially assigning a number to each song, including all variants (now known as the "Roud number") to overcome the problem of songs in which even the titles were not consistent across versions.