Tag Archives: Time Being

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Song of the Day #1,146: ‘Snow Angel’ – Ron Sexsmith

Best Songwriters – #8 – Ron Sexsmith

Ron Sexsmith’s presence here won’t come as a surprise to any of you who’ve watched me lavish praise on him over the course of ten Ron Sexsmith Weekends. In fact, the bigger surprise might be that he isn’t higher on the list.

Sexsmith is perhaps the finest melody-writer working in the business today. He doesn’t go in crazy new directions on each album; he doesn’t create cinematic landscapes through innovative production techniques; he doesn’t play fast and loose with shifting time signatures. He simply writes — with amazing consistency — some of the most sublime melodies I’ve ever heard.

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Song of the Day #1,073: ‘Jazz at the Bookstore’ – Ron Sexsmith

Ron Sexsmith often writes about music. Not about the industry, but about the songwriting process, the power of songs to move people, music as a metaphor for life.

One of my favorite of his songs about music is the Time Being track ‘Jazz at the Bookstore,’ in which he bemoans the Starbucks culture that turns the work of classic jazz and blues musicians into a shrink-wrapped commodity.

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Song of the Day #1,072: ‘Cold Hearted Wind’ – Ron Sexsmith

Ron Sexsmith’s 2006 album Time Being seems to get lost in the shuffle. It’s the one album of his nine studio releases that, for me, doesn’t have a distinct identity.

All the rest have some distinguishing factor, whether it’s the production values (or lack thereof), choice of instrumentation, chronological placement in his discography, cover photo, you name it. You name an album and I’ll say, “yeah, that’s the one with…”

But Time Being is generic in all of the ways the rest are distinct.

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