By IAN BAILEY -- Canadian Press

VANCOUVER -- Sarah McLachlan says the toughest thing about working with musician Darryl Neudorf was politely ignoring his bad ideas.

Neudorf, 34, is suing the superstar female vocalist for credit and royalties for helping out with four songs on McLachlan's 1988 debut album Touch.

"Musically, I feel I did most of the work myself," McLachlan testified Friday in B.C. Supreme Court where Neudorf's civil suit is being heard by Justice Bruce Cohen.

As the two worked together in early 1988, Neudorf was making a lot of "unsolicited suggestions" that McLachlan said she tried to ignore.

"I didn't say, 'I don't like your ideas.' Perhaps I should have," McLachlan, 30, mused as Neudorf intently took notes on her testimony, occasionally watching her with a blank expression.

McLachlan spoke softly in a courtroom where all 33 spectators' seats were taken by a mix of reporters, fans and court buffs.

She said she worried about being blunt with a man she recalled as a "nice guy, very friendly.

"It's hard to hurt someone's feelings and say, 'I don't like your ideas. Keep them to yourself."'

But McLachlan was blunt about one point: She said that she wrote the 10 songs on Touch, save for a pair co-written with collaborator Darren Phillips.

Under questioning from her lawyer Jennifer Conkie, McLachlan reviewed the genesis of each of four disputed songs -- Vox, Sad Clown, Steaming and Strange World.

"I wrote those songs. I believe in my heart that I did."

Neudorf claims he was asked by Mark Jowett -- co-founder of McLachlan's label Nettwerk Productions -- to help develop songs for McLachlan, whose songwriting skills were shaky.

Today, McLachlan is a Juno and Grammy-winning singer as respected for her songwriting and performance as the savvy she showed in organizing the Lilith Fair tour of female vocalists that grossed $28 million US this year.

But the Neudorf case is focused on 1988. At that time, McLachlan was newly arrived in Vancouver from her native Halifax and excited at the windfall of a five-album recording deal with Nettwerk.

Neudorf, a Vancouver producer and former member of the rock band 54-40, is essentially suggesting that he managed to find commercial songs in the promising musical ramblings of a talented amateur.

McLachlan conceded she is a rambling kind of songwriter, playing music and playing with lyrics in a creative process she follows in the studio and even out on walks.

"What he might consider rambling was me off in my own world, working on different parts," she said.

McLachlan denied that Neudorf made any significant contribution, other than a minor suggestion here and there.

Twice, she made her point by performance.

She strolled over to a keyboard to play and sing lyrics from Steaming, showing how she refined a melody Neudorf suggested.

She also took her guitar to the witness box and played some of Vox to highlight her contribution to the piece.

McLachlan scoffed at the suggestion that Neudorf was a fellow songwriter on Touch, which has sold more than 600,000 copies.

"I never thought I was writing songs with Mr. Neudorf," she said. "I still don't."

Neudorf is credited for helping co-ordinate pre-production work on Touch, production assistance and inspiration.