Somewhere in there at a young age, the golden age of AM radio put a spell on Ron Sexsmith. It molded the young boy with one ear glued to the hit parade into a songwriter who could weave powerful spells of his own, imbuing each of his songs with good-spirited and life-affirming affection designed to resonate with people in the same way the radio hits of his youth did for him. Along the way, he even managed to win over many of his boyhood radio heroes as his admirers, not to mention gaining the respect of his peers. As rock star dreams go that’s not too shabby.
Importantly, and as life-affirming as they are, Ron Sexsmith’s songs never trivialize or dismiss the realities of struggle, pain, and doubt. Instead, his approach has always felt like optimism under pressure, seemingly infused with the same childlike enthusiasm that compelled him to become a songwriter to begin with. To prove the point for the uninitiated, and as a reminder for long-time fans, here are 20 great Ron Sexsmith songs to get your attention, win your heart, and bring you into a world where a song can serve as a vector of emotional connectedness, contemplation, and empathy to bolster our own optimism under pressure in an era where pessimism, doubt, and fear are all too easy.
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Secret Heart
Featured on his eponymous 1995 debut, this song is classic Ron Sexsmith right out of the gate as the voice of someone with an amazing inner world to share and with true feelings and thoughts to finally be made known. Infused with jazzy guitar lines and shimmering vibraphone, this song could have been written in any pop music era from the 1920s to the 2020s.
That timeless quality is a common denominator among many of the songs Sexsmith would pen after he established himself as a songwriter to watch from his debut onward. Fellow Canadian artist Feist covered this song in 2004, as did Rod Stewart for his 1998 covers record.
Listen: Secret Heart
Galbraith Street
The titular street in St. Catharines Ontario is where Ron Sexsmith spent his formative childhood years. Here, he makes the subject matter relatable to the respective streets of our own memories. “Galbraith Street” is a spare, wistful, and introspective study about gratitude for how idyllic childhood memories have shaped us and help to sustain us in the present with a wish that our lives could be as simple again.
This is one of the most emotionally resonant songs in his canon, imbued with the very things it celebrates; thankfulness, goodwill, great affection, and an appropriate drop of melancholy, too.
Listen: Galbraith Street
Strawberry Blonde
Featured on the humbly entitled Other Songs album from 1997, “Strawberry Blonde” is an engaging short story set to one of Sexsmith’s most compelling and beloved melodies to date. Amanda is a lonely little girl at the tail end of grade four who bears the realities of an unstable home, alone. Almost immediately, listeners are fully invested in the drama; we want Amanda to be OK.
That emotional dynamic alone makes this multilayered song about the quiet dramas of childhood demonstrative of an extraordinary level of artfulness. In “Strawberry Blonde”, Sexsmith weaves a compassionate and empathetic tale of human struggle and resilience that captures our hearts in short order and for all time.
Listen: Strawberry Blonde
Pretty Little Cemetery
Also found on Other Songs, “Pretty Little Cemetery” contrasts childhood innocence with mortality wherein Sexsmith’s earthy acoustic guitar and voice are backed by spare percussion and only a hint of pedal steel to talk about a world where death, loss, and lingering grief are ever-present.
This is a tender, respectful, comforting, and life-affirming reflection on an area of our lives usually associated with fear and sadness. But “Pretty Little Cemetery” doesn’t dwell on the grimness of its themes. Instead, it’s more about how people tend to make the best of things to get on with their lives in spite of them.
Listen: Pretty Little Cemetery
Idiot Boy
After a period of self-professed overindulgence while on the road before 1999’s Whereabouts record came out, Sexsmith aimed at least some of the criticisms found in this song at himself. Yet this isn’t strictly a confessional piece. “Idiot Boy” contains striking allusions to the self-destructive side of human nature overall.
It makes its point via chirpy carnival organ figures, Beatlesque bass and drums, and jubilant rhythmic bounce as Sexsmith sings about the kind of short-sightedness that comes with a drive for instant payoffs instead of lasting fulfilment. History and headlines remain littered with examples. This cut is an enduring summation of human foibles streaked with black humour and set to a contrastingly jaunty tune.
Listen: The Idiot Boy
Cheap Hotel
On the stylistically eclectic Steve Earle and Ray Kennedy-produced 2001 album Blue Boy, “Cheap Hotel” showcases Sexsmith’s formidable skill in depicting vivid human stories inside a two-minute-and-change pop song. The tune has a kind of a gospel feel with a soulful churchy organ and crisp backbeat. The lyrics tell the story of a desperate woman contemplating her uncertain future with her children after fleeing her abusive husband.
Sometimes, a song is great because it lends insight to our understanding of human experience outside of our own lives, or because it keeps us company as we go through trials that we don’t know how to handle. “Cheap Hotel” is great for both reasons.
Listen: Cheap Hotel
Fallen
Ron Sexsmith’s approach and style are sometimes written about as a throwback to the golden age of singer-songwriters. But it’s important to note that Bing Crosby’s phrasing holds as much sway in his songs as Elton John’s classic songcraft does. “Fallen” is one of his more overt examples of that balance, also found on the Blue Boy record and covered by none other than k.d. lang in 2004.
This is a classic love ballad that exhibits the melancholy of “Autumn Leaves” as much as it reflects the down-to-earth everyman sentiment of “Your Song”. Besides all that, this song is all about the clarity that falling in love can bring, which is a fertile theme for songwriting in any musical tradition.
Listen: Fallen
God Loves Everyone
A highlight of 2002’s Cobblestone Runway, “God Loves Everyone” showcases Sexsmith’s powers to communicate his unique mix of empathy and social commentary without sounding cloying, judgmental, or polemical. In so doing, this contemplation on the nature of God and the afterlife resonates the most when it talks about life right now and how we’re all bound by the common experience of simply being alive, all of us worthy of love, divine and otherwise.
Expressed in Sexsmith’s hushed voice and gentle acoustic guitar, later joined by sighing strings that make your heart weep, “God Loves Everyone” is one of his boldest artistic statements, delivered in his uniquely unassuming manner.
Listen: God Loves Everyone
Hard Bargain
Kicking off 2004’s Retriever, “Hard Bargain” is set in a more electrified ensemble playing context where Sexsmith also finds new ways to use his voice. This cut displays a roots rock edge that sounds like a fresh start in a new era for the songwriter, featuring a compelling instrumental hook and a clean set of melodic guitar breaks between Sexsmith and new producer Martin Terefe.
“Hard Bargain” is an ode to one who is always there for us when we feel like we’re running out of steam, inspiring us to keep going anyway. The song makes a complex series of emotional dynamics poignantly relatable with immense tenderness. Emmylou Harris would cover it in 2011 on her album that confidently bears its title.
Listen: Hard Bargain
Whatever it Takes
One of the best songs that Bill Withers never wrote, this tune continues with the Retriever album’s recurring theme of endurance and moving forward after putting the past away. Sexsmith comes into his own as a confident deliverer of a loose and relaxed R&B style, showcasing some of his best singing to date.
The string arrangements recall the mid-Seventies pre-disco era in this love song for grown-ups about the determination to love, and doing what’s necessary to nurture it together after bearing the scars of love gone wrong. Michael Bublé would cover this tune on his 2009 hit album Crazy Love, a track on which Sexsmith himself sings backing vocals.
Listen: Whatever It Takes
Chasing Forever
Between releases under his own name, Sexsmith made an album of songs arranged in a back porch, close harmony country-folk style with friend and stalwart musical collaborator Don Kerr. The result was 2005’s excellent Destination Unknown album under the Sexsmith & Kerr moniker. “Chasing Forever” evokes Stardust-era Willie Nelson in a sweeping, string-laden declaration about making one’s positive mark in the world while one is able.
Credit must be given to the Kerr side of the equation for the magnificent string arrangement. Sexsmith more than holds up his end with his wistful and contented lead voice that celebrates the ephemeral nature of our lives rather than agonizes over it.
Listen: Chasing Forever
Hands of Time
This tune from 2006’s Time Being considers the times when our past feels as if it’s drifting farther out of our reach as time marches on too quickly. Adorned with vibrant, ringing guitars and a confident groove, “Hands of Time” is about realizing that one is at a stage in life when it becomes more difficult to account for the growing number of years, events, and people that we’ve left behind.
It also acknowledges the value of our lives in the celebration of moments we can treasure together. This is one Ron Sexsmith’s most eloquent songs about love and mortality, marked as much by gratitude as it is by bewilderment at how elusive the passage of time can often seem to us.
Listen: Hands Of Time
This is How I Know
Released in 2008, Exit Strategy of the Soul would be Sexsmith’s most spiritually-minded album to date. “This is How I Know” typifies this well, inflected with soulful horns, dreamy Fender Rhodes electric piano, and with Sexsmith’s heartfelt vocal front and center. With a distinct R&B spin, this tune expounds on the wonders and mysteries of the world as signposts to something greater beyond them.
Much like “God Loves Everyone”, that idea is best aligned to the common impulse for humans to search for a sense of place for ourselves, often finding hints of what we’re looking for in the little details and simple pleasures we enjoy the most.
Listen: This Is How I Know
Brandy Alexander
The title to this breezy and brassy cut is a subtle reference to the well-documented (mis)adventures of John Lennon and Harry Nilsson’s pursuit of intoxicants during the former’s Lost Weekend period. Their preferred drink? I think you can guess. Sexsmith wrote “Brandy Alexander” with Feist, his version featured on his Exit Strategy of the Soul record, and with hers included on the acclaimed 2007 album The Reminder.
The parallel in this song is about how we find ourselves getting into trouble not because of too many cocktails at the Troubadour, but rather in pursuit of love, the effects of which can sometimes equally impair our judgement. Dusty Springfield would have slayed on this one.
Listen: Brandy Alexander
Love Shines
Ron Sexsmith collaborated with producer Bob Rock to create his landmark 2011 album, Long Player, Late Bloomer. At a point in his career when he felt like he was losing traction, this album turned out to be one of his highest-profile releases and enduring fan favourites. Among other highlights, the track features an opening line that most songwriters only dream of coming up with; in every nowhere town, there are somewhere dreams.
Rife with musical hooks while telling the songwriter’s own story, all without crowding out the possibilities to be entirely applicable to anyone who hears it, “Love Shines” is quite simply a beacon of pure light written during a dark time of the soul for its writer.
Listen: Love Shines
Nowhere to Go
After he regained his mojo with Bob Rock’s influence, Ron Sexsmith was bogged down by unhelpful notes from prospective record labels who apparently didn’t know how to market him. “Nowhere to Go” featured on the tellingly titled Forever Endeavour in 2013 reflects some of his frustration with that situation, adorned by the mournful French horn part and sympathetic strings.
Yet, just by the act of singing it, it sounds like Sexsmith is freeing himself from his bounds as we listen, the music itself as the vehicle for finding his way out. In doing so, we can see our own ways out too just in being reminded that when we hear the thunder and brace for the rain in our own lives, we’re not as alone as we think.
Listen: Nowhere To Go
Saint Bernard
By 2015’s Carousel One album, Ron was back on track and is even found smiling on the cover of the record. This is appropriate considering that “Saint Bernard” is the best example of the songwriter’s dry humour and sense of the ridiculous, inspired by a painting of the said dog breed with the lovable frown given to him by his wife.
The whimsical gift implied the resemblance to Sexsmith’s usual resting face, and contributed to the same whimsy found in the song. For all his poignant ruminations on love, death, time, spirituality, and any number of other serious topics, this one is just as honest and reflective of its writer as a frowning man with a flair for the wonderfully absurd.
Listen: Saint Bernard
Breakfast Ethereal
For 2017’s The Last Rider, Sexsmith produced himself with Don Kerr, and worked with the rest of his road band instead of with studio musicians. “Breakfast Ethereal” is a bright point among many here on his most laid-back sounding release. It contains the familiar motifs of hazy childhood memories, ruminations on simplicity and innocence, and on the passage of time, all set to an intricate-but-always-catchy melody.
“Breakfast Ethereal” is bound by a kind of simpatico musical alchemy between the players and by a soaring, dreamy string arrangement. This is a song that suggests a faded polaroid picture of the past that serves as a guide to knowing what’s important in the present.
Listen: Breakfast Ethereal
Man at the Gate (1913)
Closing off The Last Rider, Sexsmith continues to tread on familiar thematic territory — that of our ephemeral existence and the appreciation of single moments. It’s inspired by a 100-year-old image on a postcard of a man anonymously photographed in Sexsmith’s former neighbourhood near Trinity Bellwoods park in Toronto.
All at once, the song draws a parallel between the man and all of us, existing in our own respective envelopes of time and place as we are. Yet at the very same time, the song pours all of its empathy and compassion into the man himself, reduced to a static moment captured in the photograph. The effect is powerful and incredibly moving as we contemplate his humanity as we ruminate on our own.
Listen: Man at the Gate (1913)
Spring of the Following Year
Before recording 2020’s Hermitage album, Ron and his wife Colleen started a new chapter for themselves in the smalltown environs of Stratford Ontario. This was after a long period living in bustling metropolitan Toronto. Melodically reminiscent of a 1930s-era Hoagy Carmichael composition, “Spring of the Following Year” arrived just in time for another new chapter for everyone — the initial pandemic lockdown.
There are several songs in Ron Sexsmith’s catalogue that express the sentiment of this too shall pass, so don’t worry — “April After All”, “Gold in Them Hills”, “All in Good Time”, and others. “Spring of the Following Year” turns out to be one of his best in that vein, even if it may not have been his intention when he wrote it.
Listen: Spring of the Following Year
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Runners-up and bubbling under:
- “There’s a Rhythm”
- “First Chance I Get”
- “April After All”
- “One Grey Morning”
- “Seem to Recall”
- “Tell Me Again”
- “Thirsty Love”
- “Gold in Them Hills”
- “Disappearing Act”
- “Blade of Grass”
- “Dandelion Wine”
- “How on Earth”
- “Tree-Lined Street”
- “All in Good Time”
- “The Grim Trucker”
- “Music to My Ears”
- “The Reason Why”
- “Heavenly”
- “Nowadays”
- “Getaway Car”
- “Evergreen”
- “When Love Pans Out”
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Ron Sexsmith writes about weighty yet relatable themes attached to accessible yet musically interesting melodies, putting empathy and affection to the forefront in such a consistent way that is remarkable over such a long career. His work has always felt like a spiritual pursuit, expressing humanity’s innate need for connection and the search for the common threads that define our lives and bind us all together.
This yearning for connection has always been at the heart of why we love any kind of music, and why so many songwriters love to create it; to achieve a sense of transcendence that takes us beyond ourselves, and helps us to get everything into perspective all at the same time. In an age where we are hyper-connected by mass media and yet seem to be further apart than ever, Ron Sexsmith’s voice is all the more valued and to be treasured as we seek to preserve a sense of vital optimism for ourselves and each other, as under pressure as that optimism might be.
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Learn more about Ron Sexsmith at ronsexsmith.com. Also, check out his Rawnboy channel on YouTube for the videos of himself singing his own songs and those of his heroes.
For you Twitter fans, Ron is a must-follow at @RonSexsmith. Come for news about new releases and shows. Stay for the pun-laden dad-joke energy from a guy who is clearly in love with the English language, not to mention his frequent interactions with fans.
