Best Songwriter Ever?

[MyNameIsMethodis]

I'm wonder what EB's opinion is of who the best songwriter ever is?

[Flannel Boy]

Lennon.

/end thread

[MyNameIsMethodis]

I disagree and go with Dylan.

[Flannel Boy]

I'm assuming that songwriting includes musical composition. If that's the case, it's not Dylan, it's Lennon.

[Cormacaroni]

Cole Porter.

[Mupepe]

Rob Thomas

[Robo]

Song for song, David Bowie tops Lennon.

[Greatness Gone]

What's up with people proclaiming Cobain as the best lyricist ever? I mean, I like some of his music, but his stuff is way too abstract to decipher reasonably. I bet he wrote all of his songs while hyped up on drugs.

[MyNameIsMethodis]

YOU TREAT ME LIKE A HEART SHAPED BOX


Also Malek stfu, you know nothing about beatles. Dylan >>> Lennon

[TakingBackSunday]

You all know what I'd say, but I'm not gonna cause you all hate him, so meh

[BobFromPikeCreek]

Song for song, David Bowie tops Lennon.

Hell yeah.

[Phoenix Dark]

YOU TREAT ME LIKE A HEART SHAPED BOX


Also Malek stfu, you know nothing about beatles. Dylan >>> Lennon

Neil Young>>>>>>Dylan

[MyNameIsMethodis]

Hank Williams >>>>>>>>>>>>> Everyone

[CurseoftheGods]

YOU TREAT ME LIKE A HEART SHAPED BOX


Also Malek stfu, you know nothing about beatles. Dylan >>> Lennon

Neil Young>>>>>>Dylan

Agreed.

Oh, and John Lennon.

[CurseoftheGods]

I am listening to Plastic Ono Band.

So fucking good.

[xnikki118x]

YOU TREAT ME LIKE A HEART SHAPED BOX


Also Malek stfu, you know nothing about beatles. Dylan >>> Lennon

Actually it's "I've been locked inside your heart-shaped box".

But yeah, I love Nirvana but Cobain definitely isn't the best lyricist ever.


I'm going to add Billy Joel to this thread. And for musical compositon, Elton John.

[Van Cruncheon]

tool

[TakingBackSunday]

I don't even know Tool

Dylan>Cohen>Springsteen>Lennon>blah blah blah

[BobFromPikeCreek]

I don't know how it happened, but this thread lead me to this:

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

Avril Lavigne

Few lyricists are able to capture the raw energy from teenagers today and elucidate it in terms that everyone across the world can enjoy and better yet, understand, like she can.

[Joe Molotov]

Lenin

[Trent Dole]

I don't know how it happened, but this thread lead me to this:

so gay

[CurseoftheGods]

My top 3 would go something like this, all imo of course:

1. John Lennon
2. David Bowie
3. Roger Waters

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

I'm disappointed at the lack of Steven Tyler and Chris Martin being mentioned

[Flannel Boy]

I'm disappointed at the lack of Steven Tyler and Chris Martin being mentioned

You spelled relieved incorrectly.

[TakingBackSunday]

haha

[Phoenix Dark]

Chris Martin? From Coldplay?

?

[MyNameIsMethodis]

Atleast no one listed Thom Yorke or that whiny taco from Muse

[CurseoftheGods]

Steven Tyler? From Aerosmith?

?

He was kidding, dude.

[cool breeze]

Yello

[CurseoftheGods]

Malek ended this thread already.

He sure did!

[Phoenix Dark]

David Bowie

[TakingBackSunday]

Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin' you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there's nothing, really nothing to turn off
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind

In the empty lot where the ladies play blindman's bluff with the key chain
And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the "D" train
We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight
Ask himself if it's him or them that's really insane
Louise, she's all right, she's just near
She's delicate and seems like the mirror
But she just makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna's not here
The ghost of 'lectricity howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place

Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously
And when bringing her name up
He speaks of a farewell kiss to me
He's sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall while I'm in the hall
How can I explain?
Oh, it's so hard to get on
And these visions of Johanna, they kept me up past the dawn

Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
See the primitive wallflower freeze
When the jelly-faced women all sneeze
Hear the one with the mustache say, "Jeeze
I can't find my knees"
Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule
But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel

Amelia, when asked "Was it awesome, your stay in Australia?"
Said, "Sort of, but short, this land must be God's favourite failure
I left after finding out that even here, even here there is daily a
Dawn, I could just as well choose
Vancouver or the Ivory Coast"
I said "Yes, but in places like those
There are no kangaroos."
A Maya with gloves, once said "Love is like cacao beans"
Well, these visions of Johanna are the darkest pralines.

The peddler now speaks to the countess who's pretending to care for him
Sayin', "Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him"
But like Louise always says
"Ya can't look at much, can ya man?"
As she, herself, prepares for him
And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed
The fiddler, he now steps to the road
He writes ev'rything's been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain

[Flannel Boy]

EXHIBIT A
"Across the Universe"
"A Day in the Life"
"A Hard Day's Night"
"Ballad of John and Yoko"
"Because"
"Come Together"
"Dear Prudence"
"Don't Let Me Down"
"Girl"
"Glass Onion"
"Happiness Is a Warm Gun"
"Help!"
"Hey Bulldog"       
"I Am the Walrus"
"I Feel Fine"
"I Should Have Known Better"    
"I Want You (She's So Heavy)"
"I'm a Loser"
"I'm Only Sleeping"
"I'm So Tired"
"It Won't Be Long"    
"It's Only Love"    
"Julia"
"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"
"Norwegian Wood"
"Nowhere Man"
"Please Please Me"
"Rain"
"Revolution"
"Sexy Sadie"    
"She Said She Said"    
"Strawberry Fields Forever"
"Sun King"
"Tomorrow Never Knows"
"Yer Blues"
"Yes It Is"
"You've Got to Hide Your Love Away"

EXHIBIT B
"#9 Dream"
"Borrowed Time"
"God"
"Grow Old with Me"
"How Do You Sleep?"
"Imagine"
"I'm Losing You"
"Intuition"
"Isolation"
"Jealous Guy"
"(Just Like) Starting Over"
"Love"
"Mind Games"
"Mother"
"Nobody Loves You (When You're Down and Out)"
"Out the Blue"
"Sunday Bloody Sunday"
"Watching the Wheels"
"Woman Is the distinguished black fellow Of the World"
"Whatever Gets You Thru The Night"
"Woman"
"Working Class Hero"

[Costanza]

Rivers Cuomo

[Phoenix Dark]

real talk: can anyone tell me what Life on Mars is about

[TVC15]

I think I'd have to go with Neil Young.

[Greatness Gone]

Rivers Cuomo

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Dude, I'd pick BrandNew's pick over him, and I hate BrandNew's opinions on everything. Weezer kinda sucks btw. One hit wonders with Pinkerton.

[Flannel Boy]

Might as well pick Billy Corgan!

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

haha Rivers

Way to scrape the bottom of the barrel

[BobFromPikeCreek]

more like rivers homo

[Phoenix Dark]

Roger Waters Exhibit A:

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but its sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but youre older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the english way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought Id something more to say

Home, home again
I like to be herejavascript:void(0);
YouTube when I can
And when I come home cold and tired
Its good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells.

That's some of the realest shit ever put down on paper.

[Van Cruncheon]

robert fripp

[TVC15]

Also, I'm kinda surprised by the Bowie mentions.  He's one of my favorite pop musicians, but I don't think he stands up all that well as a songwriter.  Often even in his best songs, you're faced with lyrics.  Bowie, much like Madonna, at his height seemed to be adept at knowing what trends to follow and what collaborators to work with.  Good musician, yes; good songwriter, he has some major weak points.

[Phoenix Dark]

True but we can agree this is better than anything the Beatles ever wrote/envisioned

[youtube=425,350]lkd1uGonwG0[/youtube]

[Greatness Gone]

Why is Bowie so unbelievably ugly?

[BobFromPikeCreek]

Why is Bowie so unbelievably ugly?

because he's not of this world.

[laesperanzapaz]

macca or lennon

cmon guys why do we have this thread

it's macca or lennon

[BlueTsunami]

Song for song, David Bowie tops Lennon.

RoboJ for Icon

[John Dunbar]

McCartney and Lennon. The two best songwriters ever ended up in the same band, fuck yeah.

Morrissey gets an honorable mention.

[Brehvolution]

McCartney and Lenon.

Also, up until the latest album, James Hetfield.

[Eric P]

nick drake is quite good.  not the BEST EVAR but quite good.

[BlueTsunami]

nick drake is quite good.  not the BEST EVAR but quite good.

Pink Moon
[youtube=425,350]hE0ODrmaiFE[/youtube]

[patrickula]

[youtube=425,350]c7M1Se-p7uk[/youtube]
Neil Young
first result on youtube

And if we're talking about lyrics, Will Sheff of Okkervil River is one of the best working now.

[MyNameIsMethodis]

Pete Townshed.

Malek stfu, you know nothing about the Beatles.

[Flannel Boy]

i like how songwriting now means 'writing lyrics' apparently

Not to me.

I'm assuming that songwriting includes musical composition. If that's the case, it's not Dylan, it's Lennon.

If it were based solely on lyrics, I'd pick Dylan.

And I vote nay on McCartney along with Lennon. We can disentangle the two because we know that most Lennon/McCartney songs were not true collaborations. While I'm not a McCartney hater, his compositions were not quite as good as Lennon's and definitely not as creative--where was his Tomorrow Never Knows (he did help with the tape loops) or I am the Walrus? And, although I appreciate McCartney's post Beatles career, his song lyrics were shallow and his compositions were often stale.

Pete Townshed.

Malek stfu, you know nothing about the Beatles.

Is this because I didn't add "Lady Madonna" to my Rock Band set list? The Beatles, though they had a short recording career, have a fairly large catalog, so I was bound to miss a song or two.

[TakingBackSunday]

Yeah, if there's one thing I can fault Dylan on, it's his lack of composition variety.  A lot of his bootlegs sound pretty similar to his released tracks.  Blonde on Blonde is his greatest achievement in both areas, lyrics and composition, but most of his albums are pretty standard music wise (I hate saying it).  But to me, lyrics are the most striking attribute to popular music, so it takes the most importance.  In that light, I don't think Dylan can be beat.

With both considered, I'd have to hand it to Lennon or Springsteen.

[Powerslave]

Steve Harris

[Powerslave]

motherfuckers

[trippingmartian]

Springsteen is up there. Certainly one of the best living songwriters.
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