Neal Hall Vancouver Sun

After taking the witness stand yesterday in a Vancouver courtroom, singer Sarah McLachlan laughed, cried, played the keyboards and sang.

She also testified that she was insulted by the testimony of Darryl Neudorf, who is suing McLachlan and her record company for copyright infringement and breach of contract.

Neudorf testified this week that McLachlan was such an inexperienced songwriter in 1988 that she didn't even know the difference between a verse and a chorus; Neudorf said he had to explain it to her.

"I was insulted when I heard the plaintiff say I didn't know. I had been studying music for years," McLachlan testified at the trial.

For the last two weeks, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Bruce Cohen has heard Neudorf and his witnesses testify about how Neudorf wasn't adequately compensated for the work he did in early 1988 helping McLachlan develop songs before she went into a Vancouver recording studio to make her debut album, Touch. The album has sold more than 625,000 copies.

Neudorf, 34, a former drummer and songwriter with the Vancouver bands 54-40 and MOEV, is also seeking royalties for co-producing Touch with Greg Reely.

McLachlan testified she was 19 in 1987, when she signed a five-record deal with the fledgling Vancouver record label, Nettwerk, and moved to Vancouver from her native Halifax.

"I was young and a little bit unfocused," she admitted, adding it was an exciting time for her because she was exploring Vancouver, meeting new people and putting her musical ideas on tape for the first time in October 1987.

She recalled that Mark Jowett of Nettwerk, who first discovered her in 1985, told her he would give her six months to come up with songs before going into the studio.

She found an apartment in Vancouver's West End, where Nettwerk set up a small recording studio with a synthesizer and 12-string guitar.

"I had so many idea floating around and this was the chance to solidify those ideas on tape," she said, admitting she wasn't clear on what kind of songs she would write, although she admired the work of Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel at the time. "I knew I wanted to make music that moved people," she explained.

Jowett worked with her initially and gave her three musical ideas to work on. Later Jowett brought in Phillips and they developed five songs together, including two partial songs he brought to her: Steaming and Uphill Battle.

The liner notes for Touch credit Phillips for co-writing the songs and he got 0.75% of the retail price of each record sold.

Lawyer Jennifer Conkie, who is representing McLachlan and the other defendants, asked McLachlan to demonstrate how the song Steaming sounded before Neudorf became involved in January 1988.

She played a repeated four-chord pattern on a portable keyboard in court and began to sing.

She stopped playing, laughed, and said: "I think I played in the wrong key." She shifted keys to C-minor and began again.

McLachlan began to cry as she recalled how she wrote Ben's Song in Halifax after her friend, Ben Askavold, died of a brain tumour while she was attending college and playing with the Halifax band, October Game. She had to take a few moments to regain her composure.

She recalled she was evicted from her apartment after Christmas 1987 because her roommate partied too much and she had to move the musical equipment and eight-track recorder into a storage room at the back of Nettwerk, where she began working with Neudorf.

She said Neudorf was hired to record and produce the demo tape to be used before going into the recording studio. She denied he co-wrote songs with her but credited him for getting her to get down to work at Nettwerk.

"In retrospect, I think the most important job he did was put a fire under me and get me there every day," McLachlan said. "I was young and a little bit unfocused."

Conkie said in her opening statement that witnesses will be called to prove Neudorf has an inflated view of his role in helping McLachlan's budding career. The lawyer argued that Neudorf has been adequately compensated for his work, receiving $3,385 in wages plus one producer's point, which is equivalent to one percent of retail record sales, or roughly $30,000 so far.

McLachlan will continue on the witness stand when the trial resumes today.