ron sexsmith – canada, eh? allllmost made it.

I first picked up a Ron Sexsmith CD at the Borders on Church Street in Burlington, VT while Christmas shopping about 7 years ago.  I threw on some headphones and listened to his album Cobblestone Runway.

Sexsmith has an awesome voice.  It’s got an interesting timbre and depth, and you can tell he’s in complete command of it, but it also has an almost nasal quality about it that is tough to define.  It was enough of a selling point that I picked up the album as a gift to my little brother, and of course ripped myself a copy.

As interesting as his sound is, and as effective his poppy hooks can be, his lyrics struck me as a tad too fey, a bit too intimately reflective for my taste, and I never got too into the album.  (My brother had the same reaction.)

I never picked up anything else by Sexsmith until I saw a post on music for robots about his new album, Exit Strategy of the Soul.  Turns out he co-wrote the song “Brandy Alexander” with fellow Canuck Feist. (You may recognize the song name from Feist’s The Reminder.)  His horn-laden version of that tune is killer– much better than Feist’s, in my opinion– and was enough encouragement for me to buy the album.

Exit Strategy is a mixed bag.  There are still elements in some songs that I just don’t like.  When he sings lines like “I’m the same boy that you knew then / I just want to be chased by love / embraced by love / just like you,” I can’t help but feel like I’m in the dentist chair, squirming as James Taylor and other adult contemporary garbage conducts an all-out assault on my ears.

But songs like “Hard Time” (below) are great.  If only he’d write songs with a bit more of a stiff upper lip more often, I think I’d go from being a Ron Sexsmith appreciator to a huge Ron Sexsmith fan.  I mean, this song is right up there with “One For My Baby (And One More For the Road)” in the pantheon of great breakup songs: “Since I’ve lost her love / seems I’ve lost my balance / have no soft place to fall / one could say I’m having a hard time.”  I LOVE that line!  It reminds me of Bill Murray in Rushmore: “Oh… I guess you could say I’ve been a bit lonely these days.”

After Cobblestone Runway came out, I remember reading an AP piece on Sexsmith.  The article painted him as a songwriter’s songwriter, one who many more-famous-than-him musicians loved (fan Chris Martin does a duet with him on Cobblestone Runway), but who for whatever reason had failed to break into the mainstream.  There was a line from Sexsmith in the article, saying something to the effect of “I’m a Canadian, and hence cannot be a rock star.  I see Ryan Adams wearing sunglasses indoors and say ‘Get over yourself.’”  I can certainly understand and appreciate his point, but part of me wishes he’d just embrace some level of theatrics in order to employ a dramatic perspective on things every now and then.  Don’t sing about how you feel, Ron.*  Sing about something that’ll make me feel the way you do.

“Hard Time” by Ron Sexsmith

“Impossible World” by Ron Sexsmith*

Both from Exit Strategy of the Soul.  But it on eMusic.