We all have our favorite songs and I am sure they cover various genres of music. My question is who are you favorite songwriters, and what are the songs that lyrically wowed you.
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We all have our favorite songs and I am sure they cover various genres of music. My question is who are you favorite songwriters, and what are the songs that lyrically wowed you.
Terence Michael Joseph Butler.
(Geezer)
Writer of most of Black Sabbaths songs.
His interests in science universe ,religion,the dark side light side fight within and humanities predisposition with its own self destruction etc. :cool:
There are so many. Dave Wakeling of The Beat (The English Beat), Richard Thompson, Bob Dylan, Mike Skinner (The Streets), Glen Tilbrook (Squeeze), Damon Albarn, Richey Edwards and Nicky Wire of the Manic Street Preachers for their lyrics and James Dean Bradfield and Sen Moore for the Music, People like Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen. James Hetfield (Metallica), Bon Scott (AC/DC), Hugh Cornwell (The Stranglers), Graham Gouldman who wrote for The Hollies, The Yardbirds,Hermans Hermits, and 10cc. Joe Strummer (The Clash) Jeff Buckley, Woody Guthrie, Alex Turner from the Artci Monkeys and The Last Shadow Puppets, Ian Brown, so many more I don't know where to start:confused::thinking2::headscratch::shocking:: shrug03:
George Michael
Lionel Richie
Lennon and McCartney by far are the greatest of all time.
Can't believe I forgot Ian Dury even his song titles "There Ain't Half Been Some Clever Bastards" and "Spasticus Autisticus" were clever and Witty like Noel Coward who inspired that "Bastards" ditty. Ray Davies of The Kinks sort of links them both and I think It is quite possible to see Albarn & Skinner in that same British vaudevillian tradition, a thesis on which I have often thought of basing a book on.
George Michael is a great songwriter as is Stevie Wonder.Quote:
Originally Posted by Master
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UmoCbWIZBY
Shane McGowan
Tom Waits
Glen Danzig
oooh wow you have to wait 20 seconds between posts....that should do it.
Thom Yorke
Yep he paints a whole picture without a brush.. Hole in this case.;DQuote:
Originally Posted by Greenbeanz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1T41908p54
Don Van Vliet (Beefheart and the Magic band) is the same) a dark poet and inventor of his own language in music and can use few words to paint a whole landscape:
Funny how both have got the raspiest voices.
Heres one of the most pornagraphic songs about a young girl with a natural talent and unquenchable dna thirst for more at any time of the day /month ;), mixed into a twisting musical masterpiece. :cool:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy6U_4MdlUY
Joe jackson and elvis costello
Pink Floyd - The Wall
Brian Eno / David Burn
God the list just goes on and on.
Havent even touched pure blues yet
Brownie Magee
One of the most revered Rock ones that many dont know but all artists claim Carl Perkins
Sam Cooke.
Paul Simon / Art Garfunkel
Cat Stevens.
Steven Stills
Tim Buckley after his death his son Jeff too.
Elton John and Bernie turpin torpin?
David Bowie
Morrissey/Marr
Anderson/Butler
Lou Reed
Neil Hannon
Scott Walker
Lennon/McCartney
Pete Townshend
Ray Davies
Just some.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andre
Elton John: tremendous composer/songwriter, singer, musician
A rare talent.
TaupinQuote:
Originally Posted by Andre
Smokey Robinson
Sam Cooke
Marvin Gaye
Bert Bacharach
Prince
Robert Plant / JImmy Page; Extraordinary songs.
The last verse of 1952 Vincent Black Lightning by Richard Thompson blew me away when I heard it as did the whole of his song "Bee's Wing" . It is a modern legend and connects to the stories of favourite steeds and dogs from English folk singers going back for over a hundred years but it is a truth that comes from his own life time and experience even if the characters are fictional. I have recorded quite a few folk bands over the years and those that really know there stuff all respect and cite this guy as a big influence.Quote:
Originally Posted by chinchekked
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qhe_U5q7tI
Here is that last verse
Says James, in my opinion, there's nothing in this world
Beats a 52 Vincent and a red headed girl
Now Nortons and Indians and Greeveses won't do
They don't have a soul like a Vincent 52
He reached for her hand and he slipped her the keys
He said I've got no further use for these
I see angels on Ariels in leather and chrome
Swooping down from heaven to carry me home
And he gave her one last kiss and died
And he gave her his Vincent to ride
and Bee's Wing
I was nineteen when I came to town, they called it the Summer of Love
They were burning babies, burning flags. The hawks against the doves
I took a job in the steamie down on Cauldrum Street
And I fell in love with a laundry girl who was working next to me
Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing
So fine a breath of wind might blow her away
She was a lost child, oh she was running wild
She said "As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay.
And you wouldn't want me any other way"
Brown hair zig-zag around her face and a look of half-surprise
Like a fox caught in the headlights, there was animal in her eyes
She said "Young man, oh can't you see I'm not the factory kind
If you don't take me out of here I'll surely lose my mind"
Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing
So fine that I might crush her where she lay
She was a lost child, she was running wild
She said "As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay.
And you wouldn't want me any other way"
We busked around the market towns and picked fruit down in Kent
And we could tinker lamps and pots and knives wherever we went
And I said that we might settle down, get a few acres dug
Fire burning in the hearth and babies on the rug
She said "Oh man, you foolish man, it surely sounds like hell.
You might be lord of half the world, you'll not own me as well"
Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing
So fine a breath of wind might blow her away
She was a lost child, oh she was running wild
She said "As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay.
And you wouldn't want me any other way"
We was camping down the Gower one time, the work was pretty good
She thought we shouldn't wait for the frost and I thought maybe we should
We was drinking more in those days and tempers reached a pitch
And like a fool I let her run with the rambling itch
Oh the last I heard she's sleeping rough back on the Derby beat
White Horse in her hip pocket and a wolfhound at her feet
And they say she even married once, a man named Romany Brown
But even a gypsy caravan was too much settling down
And they say her flower is faded now, hard weather and hard booze
But maybe that's just the price you pay for the chains you refuse
Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing
And I miss her more than ever words could say
If I could just taste all of her wildness now
If I could hold her in my arms today
Well I wouldn't want her any other way
It is supposedly about women like Vashti Bunyan and Annie Briggs and the idea of the wild free spirited women from the 60's who dropped out to live in the country and sort their heads out. The song itself is deceptively delicate and the strength of the lyrics hold it together with enough confidence to be simple like a Bee's Wing that you can hold up to the light and see exactly how it is made. Unlike somebody like Shane McGowan whose influences, Keats, Joyce etc are brilliantly drawn upon and used for inspiration there is something very straight forward and genuine in Thompson's ability to plug into the great English Folk song tradition that people often forget about despite the hundreds of songs that are still played from it today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrAyNn0PtJg
ali and cookeQuote:
Originally Posted by Andre;1125671[B
ABBA killed it too.
For anyone interested in Pop Music Production, use of harmony and great songwriting craft they are required listening. I would also advise students to check out Spector.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andre
Ewan Mcall. Another great songwriter. Danzig for the audacity of his work with the Misfits. Mike Skinner of The Streets for all his clever and original lyrical prowess and coining the phrase "Sex and drugs and on the dole" . The Manic Street Preachers for marrying intellectualy challenging concepts with faultless epic musical bombasity. Check out "Faster" for a lesson on cutting through the BS and landing with every dynamic punch.
Neil Young
Jason Lytle
Bob Dylan
Strummer/Jones
John Cale
Manic Street Preachers
McCullough/Sergeant
Bryan Ferry
Brian Eno
must listen--best tracks ever from JJ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R89Pb6WgLo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89TBG-xmVwE
That track from the 3 minute mark in the last video is one of Joes most epic writings. :cool: great tune.
Reminds me, JJ Cale: John Weldon CaleQuote:
Originally Posted by Gandalf
Is the most under the radar type of singer songwriters,Has written and recorded a massive amount of songs /albums used by all types of singers and yet only chooses to have his own fan base and never went commercial, his style is minimalist though, nothing showy,but all class.
Eric Clapton made a few of his songs more famous. Cocaine/After midnight etc etc
JJ Cale is the whole package
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8uk7vlk0sE
His songs are for the most part hidden treasures from the rest of the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lZsHljxXCE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJnhlMMhmds
Cale released a great new album just last year. Here he is with two other great songwriters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LveotAx3yiI
It began when they come took me from my home
And put me in Dead Row,
Of which I am nearly wholly innocent, you know.
And I'll say it again
I..am..not..afraid..to..die.
I began to warm and chill
To objects and their fields,
A ragged cup, a twisted mop
The face of Jesus in my soup
Those sinister dinner meals
The meal trolley's wicked wheels
A hooked bone rising from my food
All things either good or ungood.
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of truth.
An eye for an eye
A tooth for a tooth
And anyway I told the truth
And I'm not afraid to die.
Interpret signs and catalogue
A blackened tooth, a scarlet fog.
The walls are bad. Black. Bottom kind.
They are sick breath at my hind
They are sick breath at my hind
They are sick breath at my hind
They are sick breath gathering at my hind
I hear stories from the chamber
How Christ was born into a manger
And like some ragged stranger
Died upon the cross
And might I say it seems so fitting in its way
He was a carpenter by trade
Or at least that's what I'm told
Like my good hand I
tatooed E.V.I.L. across it's brother's fist
That filthy five! They did nothing to challenge or resist.
In Heaven His throne is made of gold
The ark of his Testament is stowed
A throne from which I'm told
All history does unfold.
Down here it's made of wood and wire
And my body is on fire
And God is never far away.
Into the mercy seat I climb
My head is shaved, my head is wired
And like a moth that tries
To enter the bright eye
I go shuffling out of life
Just to hide in death awhile
And anyway I never lied.
My kill-hand is called E.V.I.L.
Wears a wedding band that's G.O.O.D.
`Tis a long-suffering shackle
Collaring all that rebel blood.
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of truth.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway I told the truth
And I'm not afraid to die.
And the mercy seat is burning
And I think my head is glowing
And in a way I'm hoping
To be done with all this weighing up of truth.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And I've got nothing left to lose
And I'm not afraid to die.
And the mercy seat is glowing
And I think my head is smoking
And in a way I'm hoping
To be done with all this looks of disbelief.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway there was no proof
Nor a motive why.
And the mercy seat is smoking
And I think my head is melting
And in a way I'm helping
To be done with all this twisted of the truth.
A lie for a lie
And a truth for a truth
And I've got nothing left to lose
And I'm not afraid to die.
And the mercy seat is melting
And I think my blood is boiling
And in a way I'm spoiling
All the fun with all this truth and consequence.
An eye for an eye
And a truth for a truth
And anyway I told the truth
And I'm not afraid to die.
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
A life for a life
And a truth for a truth
And anyway there was no proof
But I'm not afraid to tell a lie.
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of truth.
An eye for an eye
And a truth for a truth
And anyway I told the truth
But I'm afraid I told a lie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyZPvJHcumI
Moving Sideways another great songwriter whose work has influenced much of my own from his own epic solo albums to the soundtrack of Last temptation of Christ. I have even covered Solsbury Hill
From Mercy Seat to Mercy Street
Looking down on empty streets, all she can see
Are the dreams all made solid
Are the dreams all made real
All of the buildings, all of those cars
Were once just a dream
In somebody's head
She pictures the broken glass, she pictures the steam
She pictures a soul
With no leak at the seam
Lets take the boat out
Wait until darkness
Let's take the boat out
Wait until darkness comes
Nowhere in the corridors of pale green and grey
Nowhere in the suburbs
In the cold light of day
There in the midst of it so alive and alone
Words support like bone
Dreaming of mercy st.
Wear your inside out
Dreaming of mercy
In your daddy('s arms again
Dreaming of mercy st.
'swear they moved that sign
Dreaming of mercy
In your daddy's arms
Pulling out the papers from the drawers that slide smooth
Tugging at the darkness, word upon word
Confessing all the secret things in the warm velvet box
To the priest-he's the doctor
He can handle the shocks
Dreaming of the tenderness-the tremble in the hips
Of kissing Mary's lips
Dreaming of mercy st.
Wear your insides out
Dreaming of mercy
In your daddy's arms again
Dreaming of mercy st.
'swear they moved that sign
Looking for mercy
In your daddy's arms
Mercy, mercy, looking for mercy
Mercy, mercy, looking for mercy
Anne, with her father is out in the boat
Riding the water
Riding the waves on the sea
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYw9UrsFJa4
The song above is inspired and dedicated to Anne Sexton whose poem 45 Mercy Street appears below
In my dream,
drilling into the marrow
of my entire bone,
my real dream,
I'm walking up and down Beacon Hill
searching for a street sign -
namely MERCY STREET.
Not there.
I try the Back Bay.
Not there.
Not there.
And yet I know the number.
45 Mercy Street.
I know the stained-glass window
of the foyer,
the three flights of the house
with its parquet floors.
I know the furniture and
mother, grandmother, great-grandmother,
the servants.
I know the cupboard of Spode
the boat of ice, solid silver,
where the butter sits in neat squares
like strange giant's teeth
on the big mahogany table.
I know it well.
Not there.
Where did you go?
45 Mercy Street,
with great-grandmother
kneeling in her whale-bone corset
and praying gently but fiercely
to the wash basin,
at five A.M.
at noon
dozing in her wiggy rocker,
grandfather taking a nap in the pantry,
grandmother pushing the bell for the downstairs maid,
and Nana rocking Mother with an oversized flower
on her forehead to cover the curl
of when she was good and when she was...
And where she was begat
and in a generation
the third she will beget,
me,
with the stranger's seed blooming
into the flower called Horrid.
I walk in a yellow dress
and a white pocketbook stuffed with cigarettes,
enough pills, my wallet, my keys,
and being twenty-eight, or is it forty-five?
I walk. I walk.
I hold matches at street signs
for it is dark,
as dark as the leathery dead
and I have lost my green Ford,
my house in the suburbs,
two little kids
sucked up like pollen by the bee in me
and a husband
who has wiped off his eyes
in order not to see my inside out
and I am walking and looking
and this is no dream
just my oily life
where the people are alibis
and the street is unfindable for an
entire lifetime.
Pull the shades down -
I don't care!
Bolt the door, mercy,
erase the number,
rip down the street sign,
what can it matter,
what can it matter to this cheapskate
who wants to own the past
that went out on a dead ship
and left me only with paper?
Not there.
I open my pocketbook,
as women do,
and fish swim back and forth
between the dollars and the lipstick.
I pick them out,
one by one
and throw them at the street signs,
and shoot my pocketbook
into the Charles River.
Next I pull the dream off
and slam into the cement wall
of the clumsy calendar
I live in,
my life,
and its hauled up
notebooks.
Anne Sexton
will check out the cale stuff when i get a few mins. I remember clapton did alot of jj cale covers over the years and always wondered who jj was.Quote:
Originally Posted by AndreReminds me, JJ Cale: John Weldon CaleQuote:
Originally Posted by Gandalf
Is the most under the radar type of singer songwriters,Has written and recorded a massive amount of songs /albums used by all types of singers and yet only chooses to have his own fan base and never went commercial, his style is minimalist though, nothing showy,but all class.
Eric Clapton made a few of his songs more famous. Cocaine/After midnight etc etc
JJ Cale is the whole package
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8uk7vlk0sE
His songs are for the most part hidden treasures from the rest of the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lZsHljxXCE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJnhlMMhmds
Ive just been flicking through that free online book, these pages on the Beatles are relevant here. I thnk its true of many artists and many people with inventions and ideas too,most say it just came to me when I wasnt thinking about it. Energy and thoughts are one and the same if you relax into enough and dismiss the more densified things in material life.
Interesting take.
The Beatles
Billy Joel, absolute legend and a top fella.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl2Jv4dzFqg
When this came out I was convinced that James sung "So damn easy to cave in, Mad Cows Everything";D
FASTER
I hate purity
Hate goodness
I don't want virtue to exist anywhere
I want everyone corrupt
I am an architect, they call me a butcher
I am a pioneer, they call me primitive
I am purity, they call me perverted
Holding you but I only miss these things when they leave
I am idiot drug hive, the virgin, the tattered and the torn
Life is for the cold made warm and they are just lizards
Self-disgust is self-obsession honey and I do as I please
A morality obedient, only to the cleansed repented
I am stronger than Mensa, Miller and Mailer
I spat out Plath and Pinter
I am all the things that you regret
A truth that washes that learnt how to spell
The first time you see yourself naked you cry
Soft skin now acne, foul breath, so broken
He loves me truly this mute solitude I'm draining
I know I believe in nothing but it is my nothing
Sleep can't hide the thoughts splitting through my mind
Shadows aren't clean, false mirrors too many people awake
If you stand up like a nail then you will be knocked down
I've been too honest with myself I should have lied like everybody else
I am stronger than Mensa, Miller and Mailer
I spat out Plath and Pinter
I am all the things that you regret
A truth that washes that learnt how to spell, learnt to spell
So damn easy to cave in, man kills everything
So damn easy to cave in, man kills everything
So damn easy to cave in, man kills everything
So damn easy to cave in, man kills everything
Cool thread, lots I would've listed as well have already been done. I haven't seen;
Brian Wilson
Nick Drake
Van Morrison
Warren Zevon
Joni Mitchell
Willie Nelson
Johnny Cash
Or how about say; George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Rodgers and Hammerstein? Guys like that practically invented popular music.
Thelonius Monk, Bill evans, Miles Davis for straightahead jazz composers, etc. Will post more I'm sure when they come to me.
Great line up. Here's a few more:
John Prine
Loudon Wainwright
Kate Bush
Townes Van Zandt
Judee Sill
Bowie
Muddy Waters
Leonard Cohen
Prince
Nick Drake
Donovan
Jack Bruce
Eddie Vedder
Van Morrison
Jackson Browne
George Clinton
John Phillips
Hendrix
Tommy James
Johnny Cash
Jimmy Page
Robert Plant
Roger McGuinn
Robbie Robertson
Marvin Gaye
Bob Marley
Freddy Mercury
Bill Withers
David Byrne
Bo Diddly
James blunt? or am I'm on deep water?