I’VE RECENTLY DISCOVERED A RELATIVELY NEW SINGER-SONGWRITER ON THE SCENE, a man named Mike Rosenberg, who is better known by his stage name, Passenger.

He’s explained that his nickname describes his approach to songwriting: He’s a passenger going through life, describing what he sees out his window. And what he sees is — or, more precisely, his powers of perception are — extraordinary. His breakout hit, “Let Her Go,” sold more than a million copies back in October, so it’s early in his career, but I think he is pointed toward greatness.

Rosenberg’s lyrics are both spare and exact, describing characters and situations with no wasted words. His voice suits his material well: it has a kind of rough-sawn sweetness that finds stark beauty and redemption in his often bleak subject matter.

Here is a snippet from his song “Riding to New York,” which he wrote after meeting a man in Minnesota who had been diagnosed with emphysema and was riding his Harley back to New York to essentially say goodbye to his family. This is the man describing his mission:

The doctors told me that my body won’t hold me,
My lungs are turning black.
Been a Lucky Strikes fool since I was at school and there ain’t no turning back.
They can’t tell me how long I’ve got,
Maybe months but maybe not,
So I’m taking this bike and riding to New York.

Cause I wanna see my granddaughter one last time,
Wanna hold her close and feel her tiny heartbeat next to mine.
Wanna see my son and the man he’s become,
Tell him I’m sorry for the things I’ve done,
And I’d do it if I had to walk.
Oh, I’m taking this bike and riding to New York

There is something about that line, “I’d do it if I had to walk,” that reminds me very much of my father’s last months. He died of cancer almost 20 years ago, and his final months were filled with reconciliation and peace, before the haze of pain and morphine took its toll and his voice. The differences I had with him that had once seemed so important, the things that had kept us apart for years, seemed to dissolve like old varnish under steel wool, and we could talk with a stripped-down honesty that the awareness of death brings. We had some of the most clarifying talks of our entire relationship in those months, as I sat by his bed.

It takes a very knowing, even brave, observer to see the state of mind that one finds oneself in when one is dying. It’s not a fun thought for any of us, but Rosenberg looks and, out of compassion, writes a song for that dying man, and it is important that we see him and recognize our own fate in his story.

Speaking of singing: I’m finding that a lot of R&B singing grates on my nerves the last, oh, 15 years or so. Some of that, I’ll admit up front, is my middle-aged “these-kids-today …” sort of thing (if I could afford a lawn, I’d be shooing kids off it). But a lot of it has to do with the infuriating overuse of something that, properly used, can be a valuable part of a good singer’s tool chest: melisma.

Melisma is singing more than one note during one syllable of a lyric. For example, the first word of the National Anthem (“Oh …”) has two descending notes: that’s melisma. The use of melisma in much of American pop music is due to the forms of music from which it is derived, especially black gospel music.

Blues and R&B great Etta James, one of the great singers in the history of American popular music, used melisma to devastating effect. Her Chess recordings from the early ’60s are particularly legendary: her performance of “All I Could Do Was Cry” is both breathtakingly intimate and vividly expressive, communicating pain with a plain, harrowing directness that other singers might find too revealing to attempt. And her skillful use of melisma serves the song; showing off is the furthest thing from her mind.

Etta’s ballads are monuments of their type. Her well-known performance of “At Last,” in spite of its lush instrumental setting, is transcendent — intimate and heartrending. the song of a woman who has suffered much, but is now blissful at having finally found a rock in the storm.

Listen to these songs and then think of, say, Mariah Carey, who, like James, uses melisma and other flourishes of gospel singing — but unlike Etta she uses it to point to her own (undeniable) virtuosity, rather than in humble service to the song. If even half the R&B belters out there had Etta James’s ability to express angst or well-earned joy, and could restrain their diva tendencies — if they could humble themselves in the service of the song — top-40 radio could be a wonderland.

Christ once said, “He who would lead, let him serve.” Singers, at their best, serve the listener by communicating some truth that is inexpressible with words alone. To be a great singer, you must put yourself aside and let the song shine.

Matt Talbot is a writer and poet, as well as an old Benicia hand. He works for a tech start-up in San Francisco.

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