A prophet is seldom respected in his own village. Or so it seems when considering Ontario songwriter Ron Sexsmith’s incredible legacy up to his masterful 2023 album, The Vivian Line. He came from modest roots (he’s stated he grew up poor), worked as a human jukebox in a tavern at age 17 in his hometown of St. Catharines, and later moved to The Beaches in Toronto with his family after having a son in 1985, writing songs as he worked as a courier. Over the years, he’s drawn admiration from the world’s most beloved songwriters, and his songs have been covered more times than even he may be aware of. Still, Sexsmith, who turns 60 in January, has often been embraced more warmly around the globe than in his home country.
“[The UK] was the first place to kind of take notice of me,” Sexsmith recalls from his home in Stratford, ON. “And I think it’s weird, when my first [major label, self-titled] album came out in 1995, it came out only in North America, and no one was playing it, no one was talking about it. I was about to be dropped by my record label. And towards the end of the year, this thing that had sort of become a part of my story is that Elvis Costello held up my record on the cover of [popular UK music magazine] Mojo Magazine in December of 1995 and it changed everything for me because all these other countries and territories said, ‘Well, when is Ron coming here?’
“So, I was able to find my footing over in those places. And it’s weird because all these people I grew up admiring, like Paul McCartney and Elton John, they were all sort of championing me. It was so surreal.”
Sexsmith has had decades to consider why his songwriting heroes were championing him out of the starting gate, and now has a theory why his music seemed to resonate with those masters.
“I love what they did so much that their music was kind of sort of in my DNA, you know, melody,” he says. “I was trying to be an album artist. And I think they saw that I respected what they did so much, whereas in North America at that particular time kind of turned its back on melody. It became more about attitude or something. Music became a sort of angry thing and I didn’t do that kind of thing. But over in Australia and all these other places it still seemed to be about melody and writing concise songs.”
Moments of surrealness continued through the songwriter’s journey, especially when renowned singers like Emmylou Harris, Rod Stewart, Nick Lowe, k.d. lang, and Feist recorded his songs. Sexsmith stumbles upon nuggets of surprise whenever he learns of a legend covering his music.
“Often times I’m the last one to know,” Sexsmith says. “I remember I was shopping at Sam the Record Man in Toronto; I think it was 1996 or ‘97, and someone who worked at the store said, ‘Hey, have you heard Rod Stewart’s version of your song?’ and I had no idea. So, he took me down to the basement of and played me [Stewart’s] version [of ‘Secret Heart,’ also covered by Feist in 2004] on a little CD player or something.
“Same thing with Emmylou Harris. When she did my song, I’d just arrived in London, England, to do some press and my publicist picked me up at the airport — which is something he never did — but he was excited that she had named her album (Hard Bargain, 2011) after one of my songs, so you know, they don’t have to run it by me. They just have to go through the publisher and stuff, so I’m not really in the loop.”
No doubt icons will long continue to cover Sexsmith’s tunes if the songs on The Vivian Line — named for a rural road leading to where he now lives — are any indication. That finely honed sense of melody — revered by Costello, McCartney, and others who’ve touted Sexsmith’s songwriting — is at the forefront of these dozen tracks that feel like they’ve wandered through a daydream to surprise themselves by arriving in the present. The first track, “Place Called Love,” is simple, direct, and universal; it would be equally comfortable being sung at a wedding, a rodeo, or a funeral.
After over 40 years of crafting memorable songs, Sexsmith doesn’t worry that his well will run dry.
“Some aspects get easier,” he says. “I think I’m better at troubleshooting or problem solving, you know, where in the past I may be stuck on a verse for like months and months, I’m better now at figuring things out. I think I know now that patience is a big part of songwriting because you can’t really force it, you just have to keep working at it. And I think some things are harder.
“A song like ‘Secret Heart,’ I don’t know if I could write a song like that now because it was so direct and so straightforward. I wrote it when I was working as a courier in Toronto and I remember thinking at the time, I’m not really good at writing these songs that have like eight versus and lyrics, these sort of folk songs and stuff. So that was my intent at really simplifying everything and writing more in a kind of conversational manner. That song’s become one of my most covered songs.”
Interestingly enough, working outside of music even when tunes were percolating inside of him helped the songsmith create some of his best songs.
“Well, I was a foot courier. I don’t think I could have written so many songs if I was a bike courier, I would have been in so many accidents. When I moved to Toronto, it was 1987 and my son was two years old. I was really not cut out to do very many jobs. I saw this ad in the newspaper and it said ‘looking for cyclists and walking couriers’ and I thought, surely, I could figure that out. So, I did it for like seven years. I tend to write when I’m walking around.
“It’s kind of like the Winnie-the-Pooh method, you know, I’m walking around, I hum to myself, I get these ideas. So, the job was like a goldmine and I think pretty much every song I wrote on my first album I wrote on the job, and even a couple from my second record. And even today, I go walk around the park if I’m working on some music.”
So, Sexsmith’s process has remained tried and true in giving voice to authentic songs that connect with people around the globe.
“The only difference is back then, just trying to make ends meet because Toronto was really hard. I wasn’t making a lot of money and I had a family. And there were some people in my orbit that were telling me, you know, maybe this isn’t going to work out, maybe you should go get a job for the post office or someplace that had benefits. I was afraid if I did that, if I had something to fall back on, I wouldn’t have persevered, you know?
“So, I have fond memories of that time because it was exciting trying to get off the ground, but I shudder to think where I would be if I hadn’t made it because like I say, I really was not cut out to do very much, you know.”
It seems Sexsmith was perfectly cut out to do exactly what he does, especially when you consider that he was a huge fan of those British Invasion bands that included The Kinks (he got to perform live with one of his heroes, Ray Davies) and The Beatles, and later fell in love with the indelible music from his home country, including Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, and especially Leonard Cohen. The surrealism in his story peaked when he went from being a fan standing outside a stage door to meet Cohen in 1985 to performing “So Long, Marianne” with the revered songwriter a few decades later.
Sexsmith had recorded Cohen’s “Heart with No Companion” on his 1995 album, so when Cohen was appearing at a Toronto bookstore in 2006 in support of his poetry collection, Book of Longing, he was invited.
“When I arrived at the bookstore, I was in the basement and I could hear everybody singing,” Sexsmith recalls. “And Leonard was there, and the Barenaked Ladies, and they were all singing Leonard songs. I was feeling kind of shy, so I sort of hung back against the wall.
“Leonard saw me and he walked over and put his arm in my arm and walked me over to the centre of the circle. I know so many of Leonard’s songs so they passed me a guitar and I was singing some tunes. When it came time to go out and sing for Leonard, we were like, ‘Oh, Leonard, you should get up and sing with us.’ And he was feeling a bit shy about it, too.
“If you watch there is a video on YouTube where I start singing ‘So Long Marianne’ and he’s standing beside me. And I could tell that he really wanted to sing it, and I knew the audience would way rather he sing than me. So, after I sang the first verse, I would whisper in his ear the first line of each verse and he would run with it. For everybody that was there, you were just in disbelief that it was even happening.”
