Great Songwriters

[chinchekked]

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.

[Andre]

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.

[Beanz]

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

[Master]

George Michael
Lionel Richie

[mrbig1]

Lennon and McCartney by far are the greatest of all time.

[Beanz]

George Michael
Lionel Richie

George Michael is a great songwriter as is Stevie Wonder.

[Beanz]

Shane McGowan

[Beanz]

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.

[Beanz]

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.

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.




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.