Some Day Soon: Essays on Canadian Songwriters

Dave D.C. Norman is a freelance contemporary-music journalist.

“That’s my sound, man,” is a prominent quote in Some Day Soon, a
book about Canada’s legendary songwriters. That remark was Neil
Young’s response to producer David Foster’s suggestion that he sang
his line a bit flat. Indeed, Fetherling’s essays on Lightfoot, Cohen,
Mitchell, Robertson, and Young explore the uniqueness of each of the
five voices represented within his pages.

As one would expect from such an examination, the author must reveal
the similarities and the differences among the discussed artists.
Fetherling does this well in Some Day Soon, blending the
comparison/contrast traits of each distinctive songwriter. He shows the
“Canadianness” of each artist in his/her personal form of shyness or
fear of the music industry. In addition, he reveals the songwriters’
common threads of intense pride in and commitment to their creations. He
contrasts them all, but still groups them as a multigenerational
“family” of Canadian songwriters. To this end, he ranges from the
unchanging (“grandfatherly”) Lightfoot to the ever-changing (“wild
son”) Young, showing how they all stem from the same
American-influenced Canada.

Fetherling recounts the careers of the five, from their struggles to
“find their own voices” through constant storytelling in song, to
their debates about the human condition in a spiritually confused world.
Others discuss only general similarities; Fetherling plays Mitchell
against Baez, Robertson against Dylan, and Cohen against Charlie Parker
in an attempt to show their individuality. Some Day Soon chronicles how
each artist escaped being a simple parody of his/her American
counterpart. It also walks the reader through the subjects’ stages of
style, perception, and philosophy. From Cohen’s perpetual bleakness to
Robertson’s innocent joys, Fetherling shows how each Canadian
songwriter rises above the nationalities of the world and strives to tie
the human condition together.

Fetherling writes with pride about the songwriters he recognizes in
Some Day Soon, and the reader leaves this book with the same proud
identification of the “Canadian songwriter.” Despite a seemingly
hurried (and far too brief) chapter on Neil Young, Some Day Soon is a
solidly written account of Canada’s “Hall of Fame” songwriters.
The reader can only hope that contemporary Canadian songwriters have a
future as bright as those mentioned above.