Category Archives: sexsmith weekends

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Song of the Day #1,058: ‘These Days’ – Ron Sexsmith

In 2002, one year after Blue Boy, Ron Sexsmith released Cobblestone Runway, a disc that marked his most significant leap forward in production values, not to mention confidence.

It’s hard to imagine the Ron Sexsmith of his first few albums recording a duet with Coldplay’s Chris Martin, as he does here on ‘Gold in Them Hills.’

And this is the first album for which I could readily find music videos of the songs. Sexsmith will never be the sort of artist who shows up in the VH1 Top 20 Video Countdown, but the fact that he strapped on a guitar and played for the cameras in interesting in itself.

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Song of the Day #1,052: ‘Foolproof’ – Ron Sexsmith

One of the most surprising, and effective, tracks on Blue Boy is the jazzy torch ballad ‘Foolproof.’ This was Ron Sexsmith’s first prominent use of horns on an album, a flourish he’d return to on later records.

The lonely Chet Baker-style trumpet and brushed drums remind me of Elvis Costello’s ‘Almost Blue,’ and I wouldn’t be surprised if that track wasn’t an influence on this one. Or perhaps both Elvis and Ron were influenced by the same unnamed song when writing their own smokey piano bar ballads.

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Song of the Day #1,051: ‘Just My Heart Talkin” – Ron Sexsmith

Ron Sexsmith kept up his pace of releasing an album every two years, putting out Blue Boy in 2001. I believe this might have been my first exposure to his music, as it was his highest profile release to that date.

In keeping with the old entry point theory, I still consider it his best work (though the competition is stiff).

Blue Boy, produced by Steve Earle, took Sexsmith into several new directions — jazz and reggae, to name a couple. One track borders on psychedelia. But the perfect melodies and introspective lyrics remained intact.

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Song of the Day #1,045: ‘Seem to Recall’ – Ron Sexsmith

Ron Sexsmith has borrowed from Bob Dylan the tendency to put his strongest songs at the end of his albums. Sexsmith usually ends his records with a romantic ballad (I mentioned Brad Paisley recently as an expert modern-day writer of love songs, and Sexsmith shares the talent).

‘April After All,’ the closing track on Other Songs, is particularly lovely, the sort of song that could have become a standard if Sexsmith was around 50 years ago.

‘Seem to Recall,’ the last song on Whereabouts, is my favorite track from that album. It’s about looking back with longing and regret.

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Song of the Day #1,044: ‘The Idiot Boy’ – Ron Sexsmith

Ron Sexsmith’s third album, 1999’s Whereabouts, featured slicker production than his first two and was a little more adventurous musically. On the whole, I like the songs a little less than the earlier material, but that’s nitpicking.

References to God show up a lot in Sexsmith’s work, and I’m not sure if he’s a practicing Christian or if he just likes the imagery (in the way that artists such as Paul Simon and Bruce Springsteen find poetry in religious language). I’m exposing my religious bigotry by stating that I hope it’s the latter.

Today’s song is more an indictment of man than a celebration of God.

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