Top 5 Lyricicisists

As a songwriter, I’ve been pretty stumped for lyrics lately, and I find myself thinking about rock lyrics a lot. And I just finished reading the novel High Fidelity by Nick Hornby (in which the main characters are constantly coming up with “Top 5” lists). Actually I read all Hornby’s novels recently. Good stuff. Funny. And quick reading… his novels take two or three days to read, tops. I recommend. Anyway, I’m going to get this blog rolling with a list of my top five favorite rock lyricists. These are my personal favorites. I’ll list ten songs by each artist that I feel best represent his work.

1) BOB DYLAN - The Unquestioned Lyric Master. The idea that Bob Dylan is the greatest all time rock lyricist is about as close to a fact as an opinion can get. The ultimate rock poet, just about all Dylan’s lyrics from the early-mid 60’s through the late 70’s are consistently spectacular, and he’s produced a good share of great stuff since then as well. In addition to his immense quality of songwriting, Bobby Z. is crazily prolific, writing hundreds upon hundreds of his immense, sprawling story/poem/songs, many of which have verses that number in the teens or twenties. Ten greats: “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” “Visions of Johanna,” “Shelter From the Storm,” “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” “Idiot Wind,” “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, “I Want You,” “Just Like A Woman,” “Mississippi,” “My Back Pages.”

2) LOU REED – Looooouuuuuu! While Lou doesn’t have as long of a stunningly prolific and practically spotless lyric run as Dylan’s twelve or fifteen years beginning around 1964, he has produced incredibly powerful lyrics in every decade (even if the 80’s are his worst, there were still some great words written then), beginning in the 60’s. Practically all his Velvet Underground stuff is genius, and at least two of his solo albums (Berlin and New York) are as well. One of the first rock lyricists to tackle darker, more “depraved” topics like homosexuality, fetishism, heavy drug use, murder and suicide, Lou is a true blue rock weirdo. Plus he had a really long mullet from like 1988-1998. Ten greats: “I’ll Be Your Mirror,” “Heroin,” “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” “I’m Waiting For The Man,” “Candy Says,” “Pale Blue Eyes,” “Caroline Says II,” “Romeo Had Juliette,” “Hold On,” “I Wanna Be Black.”

3) MORRISSEY – If there is one lyricist begat from the 1980’s that deserves inclusion in this list, it is undoubtedly this clever SOB. At once comic and melancholy, arrogant and self-deprecating, life-affirming and venomously angry, Irish and British, Morrissey’s words are unlike anything else ever written. Social and political commentary blends seamlessly with intensely personal themes. Whether Morrissey is being sincere or tongue-in-cheek (and it’s often hard to tell) doesn’t matter. He’s somehow being funny and mournful at the same time… and brilliant. Ten greats: “Everyday is Like Sunday,” “There is A Light That Never Goes Out,” “Bigmouth Strikes Again,” “I Have Forgiven Jesus,” “Paint A Vulgar Picture,” “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now,” “What She Said,” “Meat is Murder,” “We Hate it When Our Friends Become Successful,” “Girlfriend In A Coma.”

4) PAUL SIMON – For sheer poetic focus, it is hard to find a better songwriter than Paul Simon. The majority of Simon’s lyrics do not display quite the same level of colorful imagery or imagination as Dylan’s (who it is not fair to compare him to, but was the closest thing he had to a folk-rock songwriter rival through the 60’s and 70’s... hmmm... actually Neil Young is now coming to mind... shit... I'm starting to wonder if he should be in my top five), and most of Simon’s stuff is three or four verses long, whereas Dylan could write fifteen verses in the blink of an eye. But if we must compare (and we must, because no one writes lyrics in a vacuum), to his credit nearly all Simon’s songs make perfect sense and pack a strong punch in the minimum of lines, whereas Dylan can be a bit murkier and more long-winded. Simon doesn’t go to excess; he puts forth his message in a fairly simple way, while still managing to maintain a lyrical loveliness and profundity in the language he uses. Ten greats: “Patterns,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “The Boy in the Bubble,” “The Boxer,” “The Sound of Silence,” “America,” “Hazy Shade of Winter,” “Slip Slidin’ Away,” “Mrs. Robinson,” “American Tune.”

5) JOHN LENNON – Throughout his career, Lennon showed an amazing ability to write in an eclectic array of styles. His early Beatles stuff helped set a standard for pop songwriting, and in the later Beatles years he set new standards with lyrics that were alternatively introspective, political, and/or psychedelic/spiritual. Mainly, he is included on this list because of the raw emotion he managed to convey. Whether demonstrating intense anger and frustration, overwhelming sadness and exhaustion, or pure love and innocence, Lennon’s best words are stripped-down, stark, and emotionally naked. During his solo career, he pretty much stopped hiding behind symbolism or any kind of poetic device and just let it all hang out, baring his soul as openly as any rock songwriter has ever done. Actually, his solo stuff and Beatles stuff is so different that I’m going to list ten solo songs and ten Beatles songs… Ten solo greats: “Imagine,” “Jealous Guy,” “Isolation,” “Mother,” “Working Class Hero,” “I Found Out,” “Oh My Love,” “Woman is the Nigger of the World,” “Cold Turkey,” “Instant Karma.” Ten Lennon/Beatles greats: “Revolution,” “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown),” “Tomorrow Never Knows,” “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” “Baby’s In Black,” “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” “Across the Universe,” “A Day In The Life,” “All You Need Is Love.”

Ten honorable mentions: Neil Young ("Southern Man, "Needle and the Damage Done," "Old Laughing Lady"), Leonard Cohen (Bird on the Wire," "Last Year's Man," "Avalanche") Tom Waits ("Swordfishtrombones," "Time," "Downtown Train"), Robert Hunter ("Black Peter," "Eyes of the World," "It Must Have Been the Roses"), John Hiatt ("Wrote it Down and Burned It," "Crossing Muddy Waters," "Perfectly Good Guitar"), Bob Marley ("War," "Redemption Song," "No Woman, No Cry"), Kurt Cobain ("Polly," "Drain You," "Serve the Servants"), Paul McCartney, during Beatles period ("Eleanor Rigby," "The Fool on the Hill," "For No One"), Elvis Costello ("Radio Radio," "I'll Wear It Proudly," "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror"), Frank Zappa ("Bobby Brown Goes Down," "Montana," "The Torture Never Stops")

Screw Jim Morrison ("The End," "When The Music's Over"), Roger Waters ("Sheep," "Comfortably Numb"), David Bowie ("Heroes," "Rock 'N' Roll Suicide"), Mick Jagger (Sympathy for the Devil," "19th Nervous Breakdown"), and Bruce Springsteen ("Born to Run," "It's Hard to Be A Saint in the City"). Obviously, they’re all Rock Gods and are excellent at writing rock lyrics, but screw ‘em anyway.