By IAN BAILEY -- Canadian Press

VANCOUVER (CP) -- Superstar singer Sarah McLachlan performed in court Thursday as her lawyer launched a blunt attack on a musician claiming credit for four of her songs.

Smiling and joking, McLachlan stood over a keyboard, played several chords from her 1988 song Steaming.

And then, in a move that caused a rustle among spectators in court, the Juno and Grammy-winning performer began singing lyrics from the song featured on an album that launched her career.

Darryl Neudorf, who has launched a suit against McLachlan and her label, looked on grim-faced.

"I think I am playing this in the wrong key," McLachlan told an audience that included teenage fans, reporters, court buffs and figures in B.C.'s music industry.

Neudorf, a Vancouver producer and former drummer with the band 54-40, is suing McLachlan, saying he didn't receive sufficient cash or credit for helping her develop four songs on Touch -- Vox, Sad Clown, Steaming and Strange World.

McLachlan sobbed on the stand as she recalled how she wrote Ben's Song, featured on her 1988 debut album Touch, in an outrush of grief over the death of a friend from a brain tumor.

"Take a moment to compose yourself," McLachlan's lawyer, Jennifer Conkie, told her client, passing her a box of Kleenex.

Conkie, who is also a musician, promised testimony that will prove Neudorf a liar.

"The defendants say that not only does the plaintiff have an exaggerated sense of his own importance on the Touch project, but that he has fabricated and taken undue credit in various parts of his testimony," Conkie said in an opening statement.

She said she will call five key witnesses, including a pair of senior officials at Nettwerk Productions, McLachlan's label, the man billed as producer of Touch and musician Bill Henderson of the band Chilliwack.

Neudorf has recast, forgotten or made up conversations that never occurred, Conkie said as Neudorf took notes at a table behind her.

She said he has been properly compensated with direct wages of $3,385 for about four months' work and a cut of Touch revenues that could be worth $30,000. Neudorf's lawyers have dispute the $30,000 suggestion.

After Thursday's hearing, Neudorf was asked for comment on suggestions he is a liar.

As he was about to reply, his lawyer Jonathan Simkin walked over, grabbed his client's sleeve without a word and dragged Neudorf away across the main atrium of the downtown Vancouver law courts.

Neudorf, 34, claims that he was asked by Nettwerk co-founder Mark Jowett, an old friend, to help develop songs for McLachlan, whose songwriting skills were shaky.

Touch's cover notes credit McLachlan for solo writing of all but two cuts on the album. Work on the other two is shared between McLachlan and Darren Phillips, who has testified for Neudorf.

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

McLachlan described her songwriting approach as "instinctual" and a routine that hasn't changed much since she arrived in Vancouver in late 1987 from her native Halifax.

She had been invited to make the trip by officials with her current label Nettwerk Productions.

"(Songwriting) is a solitary process," she said. "It involved playing for hours and hours and working things out in my head."

In two hours of testimony, McLachlan was both subdued and indignant. At times she was sarcastic. Other times she was angry.

At one point, she praised Neudorf for helping keep her on track as she began working on Touch, the first album in a five-record deal with Nettwerk.

"More than anything, I think the most important job (Neudorf) did was to put a fire under me to get me working," she told the court.

But she was also sharply critical. At another point, she lashed out at his claim that she once asked him the difference between a verse and chorus -- part of a suggestion that she needed his guidance.

"I was insulted and indignant to hear the plaintiff saying I asked the difference," she said, noting she had been studying music for years.

She said Neudorf was recruited to work primarily on technical aspects of preparing songs for Touch.