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...

IS Ep 20: Your “Authentic” Self             As you’ll discover during this show, this episode’s title is a little tongue-in-cheek but nonetheless, important for all those interested in embracing their creative path and choosing wisely each morning. NOTE: This episode includes a question for you. It’s a...

In The Zone? Or Totally Out Of It? This short interview was filmed by the good people at IXLAT Films right after one of my favourite shows of the year.       Myself and Luke O’Shea had just finished playing to a full house at The Dag Sheep Station as a part of the Hats Off To Country Festival which takes place every July in Tamworth and Nundle,...

Don’t Chuck It We all have our own notepads and scraps of paper and disorganised voice memos and documents and even cassettes and mini discs! We did not have better ideas for songs back then and we do not have better ideas now. The art remains the same, our minds can weave that as they please and “old” ideas should not be considered “old” at all. If you have...

Even Better Than The Real Thing? A weekly column by Inside Songwriting contributor, Michael J Roberts. When it comes to consuming music we can safely put people into two camps, those that don’t mind a level of artificial manipulation in their music and those that do. By that I mean that it is fine for any record by Lady Gaga or Nicki Minaj to have a large degree of...

Henry Mancini & Johnny Mercer – Moon River   This exquisite ballad was commissioned for the Paramount film Breakfast at Tiffany’s in 1961 (Click here to read Filmycks review), and was specifically written to accommodate the limited range of the star that was to sing it, the gorgeous Audrey Hepburn. Master lyricist Johnny Mercer, who had been...

There’s always another song waiting to be written. Explore and quietly examine, in your own way and at your own pace, every detail of every leaf & branch on the tree that grows from your experiences. Your roots are deep and no-one is an exception. Karl Broadie is the author of The Free-Thinking Songwriter...