What if your polymusical taste didn't involve several different disparate pieces of music, but instead consisted of several different disparate approaches to music all appearing moments apart in the same piece of music?  This is the delightful conundrum faced by fans of Laura Nyro, the brilliant singer/songwriter who was never able to fit in any kind of programming slot because she just wrote and sang what she felt.

My brother introduced me to Laura Nyro's music when I was quite young, and over the years going back to it always proves to be an antidote to the rigorously programmed music of the radio world. Although her songs were covered by radio artists, listening to her original versions of those songs is like stepping away from an old black and white TV camera monitor and looking past it at the real, full-colour original performance it's recording.

But for a truly soul-cleansing experience, step inside the world of the songs she wrote that no one else ever tried to sing, songs that defied cover versions, songs that feel so personal that no one else could sing them, and when you're listening you feel like you've been given a private display of what it was like to be her, to live her life for three or four minutes. These songs play like life itself, moving along at a nice pace, then suddenly grinding to a sudden halt, a moment of introspection that gives way to a madcap rollercoaster downslope whose manic salchows stop just as suddenly on the other side.

I love so many of these songs it's hard to pick a favourite, but if I had to it would be "Poverty Train." Songwriters often reach into the 'what-if' bag and write songs about what they think it would be like for someone else to live a life they themselves have not experienced. This is not one of those songs: