Songwriters sometimes deem songs to be “sky fallers,” near-perfect tunes that essentially seem as if they fell out of the sky, fully finished. For most of her career, Toronto-based singer-songwriter Kat Goldman established herself as one of the finest, legendary lyricists of her genre, thanks to four highly acclaimed studio albums packed with what sounded like “sky fallers.” Yet for seven years, that songwriting itch went on hiatus.

“During those seven years, I wrote my book and was tied up with a different kind of writing,” she says. “I was so blocked in my songwriting that my mother actually turned to me about six months ago and said, ‘Do you think you’ll ever write another song?’ It got me worried. Not long after, a friend of mine sadly passed away and a song about him just came out of me the following week. It was a breakthrough. It was like my friend sent me the song as a gift. It’s called ‘True Man of the North.’ I sent it right away to his wife and she said, ‘You totally got him, you nailed it. He would’ve loved it.’ He was a big Bruce Springsteen fan, and the song had a similar tone.”

Goldman, whose material has been covered by Dar Williams and Grammy nominees The Duhks, has recently written some of her best material. “Sometime” is another tender, soulful tune with a Seventies vibe, this time on piano, that deals with grief—with missing someone so much after they die that all you can do is try to imagine seeing them again up in heaven. “That song is my take on the afterlife,” she says. Singing background vocals is Rique Franks, who did the vocal arrangements herself.

Born in Toronto, Goldman grew up in a musical family and saw music as her vocation early on. At age 11, she wrote her first song—a “pop number,” which her piano teacher liked so much that he made copies of it for all his students.

Influenced by music of the Sixties and Seventies and inspired by icons like Stevie Nicks, Paul Simon, and Bob Dylan, Goldman’s career launched when she performed in a Grateful Dead cover band at age 18. “I didn’t even know who The Grateful Dead were!” she says. “But it was fun, and we even had quite a following for a couple of years, playing some great venues in Ottawa, Toronto, and Hamilton.”

In 1998, Goldman graduated from The Create Institute’s Expressive Art Therapies program, but decided to become a songwriter instead. Performing at open mics and gaining a following, the singer released her 2002 debut album The Great Disappearing Act, featuring her timeless folk song “Annabel,” which soared. Canadian folk group The Duhks covered it on their 2003 Grammy-nominated album Your Daughters & Your Sons. It also appeared in the hit television series Hell on Wheels. Since then, countless folk musicians have covered it all around the world.

Unfortunately, life threw an unexpected curve ball at Goldman in 2003 when she was severely injured in a freak car accident. Although it took time to recover, listening to John Lennon’s music and playing her own material helped her through the extremely challenging phase. “I had bruises everywhere, a cast on my leg and a cast on my arm, and I was on crutches,” she says. “Somebody gave me a little tiny guitar, and I would play my song ‘Weight of the World’ over and over. That was soothing. My accident was beyond explanation. It was a near-death experience, and forced me to face my own mortality. It was a heavy time.”

After recovering, Goldman released 2007’s Sing Your Song, her sophomore album featuring “Weight of the World,” which Dar Williams later covered on her album, Emerald. When Kat turned 40, she attended Harvard Extension School and Boston University for a degree in English Literature. “It was an amazing opportunity,” Goldman says. “I first started with a poetry class and it almost immediately got me started in writing new songs again. The learning and atmosphere of academia was so stimulating. The songs were just coming out of me. Within a couple of years, I had enough material for (2013’s) Gypsy Girl, which was my third album.”

Goldman, who has shared the stage with Dar Williams, The Waifs, Colin Hay, Midge Ure, and Regina Spektor, along with many others, released her fourth album The Workingman’s Blues in 2017. Kat calls it her “rock musical,” about a young, tough workingman from south of Boston. It soon became another cult classic and got her invited to play the Edmonton Folk Festival.

But in 2019, after The Workingman’s Blues, Kat says she crashed. So, she put her songwriting on hiatus to write a regular blog for Sound Café.com titled The Disgruntled Songwriter. This evolved into her 2021 book Off the Charts: What I Learned From My Almost Fabulous Life In Music (Sutherland House Books). “It was my first try at writing humour,” she said. “I came up with a formula; an angle about how sort of funny and pathetic it is to try and be a songwriter in the music industry. I got to a point where the only way to look at it was to find the humour in it.”

Now with a collection of new songs Goldman is looking forward to beginning her fifth album. Now, more than ever, she is crafting timeless and memorable masterpieces. “So far, I have eight keepers, so I’m almost there,” she says. “I just want the songs to be good. I want them to be inspired. I just feel anxious to get the music out there.”

The rest of us are equally anxious to hear it.

By Jason MacNeil