Above -- For those (Australia, New Zealand) who can't get i tunes

An e-mail to Russell from Sting:

You're a very enigmatic man Mr Crowe. This is not what i was expecting.

All families have their defining tragedies, putting them into rhyming couplets and song form crystallises them into myth. the stories we tell to understand ourselves.

In the times i've spent with tribal peoples, no conversation about the weather, or when to plant crops, move a village or even the purchase of a machete didn't begin with the story of the ancestors, each succeding generation, from the first to the last, given a say and a stake in the current debate, before the argument could move on.

Your song is a royal gift to young Charlie, beautiful photographic images, a surprisingly tender voice, and I'm touched you would send it to me, but will it get on the radio? Not a chance mate.

The days of the confessional, biographical song are over, and not even you Mr. Crowe can bring them back. But that shouldn't deter you from telling your myth, for yourself and for your children's children.
Love,

The wind that shakes the barley.

An e-mail to Russell from Billy Bragg:

'Raewyn' arrived in yesterday's post and it brought my morning to a halt, leaving me gazing out at the winter sun on the ocean. Its a beautiful, intimate song. Writing about family is always hard because it is so personal, but you've managed to evoke on the universal nature of experience by neatly linking the generations - 'A son and a father should always be talking' (great line) made me think first of my old man and how we got on, but then of my role as a father and how I relate to Jack.

Its a very well crafted mix of powerful emotions with tender sensibilities and I hope we have time in Sydney to sit down and write something that touches on those feelings.

best,

Billy

canada.com: "...[Alan] Doyle praised Crowe's writing, saying the actor knows how to "deliver a good song" and is a "spectacular lyricist."

"I've never met anyone who pays more attention to the word than Russell Crowe," Doyle said. "I don't know if that's a result of him being a very attentive musician or being the best actor in the world ... somebody who's been exposed to the best dialogue in the world."

Soulshine.ca: Doyle: “We spent a fair bit of time clowning around or sharing stories of our homes in Newfoundland or Australia and New Zealand,” says Doyle of recording with Crowe. “That said, I have never met a man more dedicated to his art, whether it be acting or music. Great Big Sea has not stopped working for 12 years, but Russell Crowe works harder than anyone I’ve ever known.”

At the Songwriters Circle/Juno Awards 4/3/05: ...he (Doyle) spoke of meeting and working with Russell and then performed one of the songs that they wrote together! "The Weight of a Man" and he said that Russell came up with the concept to write a song for Danielle and about how it must be hard to put up with all that comes with being married to him - from him to the constant press... "hard to handle" was one of the lines...

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Chris Heath in the GQ interview - March 2005:

He has been collaborating with a songwriter named Alan Doyle, from a Canadian band he likes called Great Big Sea; this new song, “Raewyn,” has a different level of poise and grace than much of the records by Crowe’s band, Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts, and its lyrics are both elegant and more direct. It draws on two traumatic early deaths in the Crowe family tree—his mother’s sister Raewyn and his father’s brother Charlie—and on his own new family, on how these are linked by name and heritage, and of what it is to be a parent and a child:

“My mother’s sister committed suicide when she was 21. Slashed her wrists in the bath. And my father’s youngest brother died in a scuba-diving accident when he was 17. It just hadn’t occurred to me what my father would have been able to say to my mother when she lost her sister, because he had had the same experience, and how close that must make them.”

Growing up, were you very aware of all this history?

She died while I was alive. He died just before I was born. It was one of the odd things, when Dani wanted to call the baby Charlie and I said, “I don’t think that’ll go down very well in my family.” We’ve had two Charles Crowes. One died scuba diving at 17. The other, the uncle of my grandfather, died in the Battle of Britain at 21. But Dani had an Uncle Charlie who moved from York to Hollywood and lived till he was 96. So I went on two things: a combination of genes and third-time lucky.