Corin Raymond is a young man writing old songs- not songs written deliberately in an old style, but songs that sound like they've been around a lot longer than Corin himself.

He didn't grow up playing music or writing songs, but he grew up around words.

Edna St. Vincent Millay. Robert Frost.

Poetry. Words.

He soaked up showtunes. New York wordsmiths.

Frank Loesser. Lorenz Hart. Alan Jay Lerner.

He lived in Cochenour- pop. 418- the furthest northwest point on the Ontario roadmap- until the age of ten. He lives in Toronto now. Though most of the songs on his first full-length cd Record Lonesome Night were written while living on the shore of Lake Wabigoon.

Country tunes for the city.

Black spruce. Jackpine. The shrill pulse of crickets.

He started writing songs with guitarist Sean Cotton as part of the still-active acoustic duo The Undesirables. He supplied lyrics to fifty songs before he started writing them on his own. He took his cue from craftsmen who kept it simple.

Johnny Cash. Kris Kristofferson.

Gold in three chords.

Willie Nelson. Roger Miller.

There's a respect for words in country music. There's a playfulness.

When Your Phone Doesn't Ring That'll Be Me. My Uncle Used To Love Me But She Died.

Titles say a lot.

Nine Years Drunker Than You. Record Lonesome Night.

Corin's songs are stories. They're also bittersweet tunes sung with unadulterated joy. Equal parts heartache and hope. Tom Waits does that. John Prine does that. They don't take themselves too seriously but they break your heart. The low in loneliness and the high in hi-dee-ho, all at once.

Corin's songs want to be sung. Whenever people hear them they leave singing. His first cd isn't out yet but people are already covering the songs on it. Claire Jenkins, Justin Rutledge, Michelle Rumball. You'll be singing them soon too.