Leonard Cohen – Suzanne Michael J Roberts writes of Suzanne by Leonard Cohen       “Leonard Cohen took the opportunity to walk through a door that Dylan had kicked down with his cowboy boots and he stretched the poetic dimension of what folk-pop music could accommodate in doing so”.   Suzanne was the first song on his first...

Brian Wilson & Van Dyke Parks – Sail On Sailor The beauty and impact of this superb and evocative song belies its tortuous antecedents. Brian Wilson had been musically inactive for nearly 5 years, a victim of a nervous breakdown brought about by a calamitous cocktail of anxiety and drug abuse. The Beach Boys continued to fill the gap, writing and producing...

Randy Newman – Sail Away   Randy Newman released this song as the title track of his 1972 release Sail Away, instantly contributing a classic to the American canon and all with a song that dealt with a little examined stain on the American Dream, black slavery. The acerbic Newman coats his bitter lyrical pill, as usual, in the sugary and sweet strings...

Andy Partridge – River of Orchids XTC’s resident genius, Andy Partridge, retreated from the live performance arena after suffering a nervous breakdown in Paris in the early ‘80s due to anxiety triggered by stage fright. He settled into creating several brilliant studio albums to communicate his musical vision and came up with a surfeit of inventive and...

Ron Sexsmith – Pretty Little Cemetery Ron Sexsmith followed his eponymous and acclaimed 1995 second album (but the first with a wide release) with an excellent collection of poetic and heartfelt tunes for the wittily titled Other Songs…..     …Ron seems to understand the exquisite melancholy inherent in the human condition, where the...

Harry Nilsson – One           Again, I’m feasting on this book. Michael J Roberts has written several books on brilliant songwriting, I keep turning to “33 Great Songs, 33 Great Songwriters” and I think the reason is that no matter what page I land on, I am genuinely reminded why a great song is a great song. As well...