In fact I find some of his work, such as "Kiri's Piano" overcrafted--but he's a great writer. I love playing "Red River Rising" which has a nice blend of history, fiction, imagery, action and simplicity.

I went to a songwriting workshop he gave once. Wherein he mentioned that his favourite of everything he'd written at that time was "Lost", almost a throwaway piece from his first album. I like "Lights in the Harbour", if that's the name of it, from that album as well.

One of his interesting habits as a songwriter is to adopt the point of view of a character who is of a different political stripe than the typical leftie folksinger, which of course he is. He does this for example in "Red River Rising", "Kiri's Piano", and "Small Rebellions".

W-O