100 Best Living Songwriters

[Blackberry John]

No Gord!!

According to Paste Mag...here's top 25... click link for all 100...
100 Best Living Songwriters

1. Bob Dylan - "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right"
2. Neil Young (Buffalo Springfield, CSN&Y, and w/ Crazy Horse) - " Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere"
3. Bruce Springsteen - "Blinded By The Light"
4. Tom Waits, Kathleen Brennan - "Innocent When You Dream (78)"
5. Paul McCartney (The Beatles, Wings) - "Fine Line"
6. Leonard Cohen - "Suzanne
7. Brian Wilson (The Beach Boys) "Heroes and Villains"
8. Elvis Costello - "Alison (live)"
9. Joni Mitchell - "Big Yellow Taxi"
10. Prince (also under various aliases) - "If I Was Your Girlfriend"
11. Randy Newman - "Sail Away"
12. The Rolling Stones (Jagger/Richards) - "Gimme Shelter"
13. Paul Simon - "I Do It For Your Love"
14. Stevie Wonder - "I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)"
15. Willie Nelson - "Crazy"
16. David Bowie - "The Man Who Sold The World"
17. Holland-Dozier-Holland - -"Come See About Me" (Diana Ross & The Supremes)
18. U2 (Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullins Jr., Adam Clayton) - "With Or Without You"
19. Patty Griffin - "Flaming Red"
20. Van Morrison (Them) - "Sweet Thing"
21. Lou Reed (Velvet Underground) - "Walk On The Wild Side"
22. Lucinda Williams - "Car Wheels On A Gravel Road"
23. Elton John & Bernie Taupin - " My Father's Gun"
24. Jeff Tweedy (Wilco, Uncle Tupelo) - "Sunken Treasure"
25. Chuck Berry - "Thirty Days"

[Affair on Touhy Ave.]

Should it even matter if they're living or dead?

[Wes Steele]

Just goes to show you how "messed up" these "experts" are.

Just like the "Mistake On The Lake" (Erie)... The Rock & Roll Hall of "Shame"........

Neil Young Or Gordon Lightfoot??????? You've got to be kidding.....

Wes

[joveski]

> 24. Jeff Tweedy (Wilco, Uncle Tupelo) - "Sunken Treasure"

[img]tongue.gif[/img]

listening to him right now... the man has grown exponentially since his old uncle tupelo days..

here are the lyrics to Sunken treasure:

There's rows and rows of houses
With windows painted blue
With the light from a TV
Running parallel to you

But there is no sunken treasure
Rumored to be
Wrapped inside my ribs
In a sea black with ink

I am so
Out of tune
With you

I am so out of tune
With you

If I had a mountain
I'd try to fold it over
If I had a boat (probably roll over)
You know I'd probably roll over (leave it on the shore)

And I leave it on the shore (leave it for somebody)
I'd leave it for somebody
Surely there's somebody
Who needs it more than me

I am so
Out of tune
With you

I am so out of tune
With you

For all the leaves will burn
In autumn fires and then return
For all the fires we burn
All will return

Music is my savior
I was maimed by rock and roll
I was maimed by rock and roll
I was tamed by rock and roll
I got my name from rock and roll

[Borderstone]

I don't pay mind to lists like these. They're only the opinion of a select few and as we all know,everyone has their own views.

That's like me making one of my lists and asking all of you to accept it as fact.

[ June 01, 2006, 14:15: Message edited by: Borderstone ]

[BILLW]

Originally posted by Borderstone:
That's like me making one of my lists and asking all of you to accept it as fact.

Well said B, well said !

Bill

[Janice]

Originally posted by Borderstone:
Idon't pay mind to lists like these. They're only the opinion of a select few and as well know,everyone has their own views.

Well of course no one expects this list to be accepted as devine, much less complete. I think it was originally offered here to generate discussion with regard to agreement/disagreement of who the creators of the list thought to be the 100 best living songwriters - and nothing more.

Personally, I agree with several of the songwriters listed, but not necessarily that the particular song indicated represents their best work.

[ May 31, 2006, 15:14: Message edited by: Janice ]

[Kilgore]

Well not having Lightfoot there is a joke. But where is Bachman or Cummings, some of the best Rock songs written by these two. And they have Ryan Adams there but I did not see Bryan Adams

[Borderstone]

I can do a "personal" top ten but that's about it.
This is strictly for songwriting.

1. Gordon Lightfoot
2. Bob Dylan
3. Jim Morisson/Bobby Kreiger (Bob wrote Light My Fire not Jim).
4. Paul Simon/Art Garfunkel
5. Mariah Carey (except for cover songs,she writes and sometimes produces her own.)

6. Paul Williams ("Old Fashioned Love Song",
"Out In The Country","Evergreen",
"Where Do I go From Here",
"Another Fine Mess",
"What Would They Say?","Rainbow Connection").

7. Harry Chapin
8. Steveland Morris (Stevie Wonder0
9. Any member of Fleetwood Mac
10.Al Stewart

I know,a couple aren't living but I couldn't think of any others offhand.
Not set in stone,mind you,but that's about the gist of it.

[Long River]

Borderstone,
I'm surprised you didn't mention a certain Neil Diamond in your top 10. Had to do a search here cause I thought I remembered that you had him as your favorite artist before Lightfoot became #1. Diamond was my favorite also, so it stuck in my mind.

He did some very good writing - Tap Root Manuscript, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Serenade albums.

But I agree, no one is going to have the same top 10 and that's fine, better to have such a diversity of music to listen to.

[ELizabeth]

I feel that John Stewart,John Denver and Glen Campbell are close to the top.

[classicmixdj]

No Lightfoot...no Warren Zevon...c'mon!

[joveski]

does anyone appreciated Jeff Tweedy of wilco here???

the guy has come a long way since 1995

That Jeff Tweedy sounds like a real gem. What meaningful lyrics! Folding over mountains - what's that all about? How could he NOT have made the top 100?

[Kilgore]

Living songwriters I can't really argue with Dylan being at the top though personally I don't even own a Dylan CD.

Fromt here Neil Young is and definitely should be there.

Gordon Lightfoot would be on my list obviously and so would Al Stewart

[Kilgore]

In addtion I would put Burton Cummings/Randy Bachman

[Next Saturday]

I was looking at this list because NPR has a link to it from their website. Did a bit of searching around and Lightfoot is listed in the "musical" position of #88 of the Reader's Poll.

Also a nice little review of Harmony:
http://www.pastemagazine.com/action/...article_id=809

Gordon Lightfoot - Harmony
Spinart Gordon Lightfoot’s 23rd album almost didn’t get made. Back in 2002, Lightfoot had recorded demos for his next project, only to land in the hospital after a burst abdominal artery felled him during a concert in his Ontario hometown. When he awoke from the coma, physical limitations prevented him from getting back in the studio or even singing. So he called on his bassist, Rick Haynes, to see if he and engineer Bob Doidge could make something of those demos.

Along with other musicians who’d worked with Lightfoot, the two added instrumentation to the demo tapes, which the singer would approve or suggest changes to from his hospital bed. The result, Harmony, shows the limitations of its sources—Lightfoot’s baritone is nowhere near as strong as the one we’re accustomed to hearing—but the songs themselves exhibit the melancholic melodic sense that’s been the singer’s hallmark since early-’70s hits like “Sundown,” “Carefree Highway” and “If You Could Read My Mind.”

In fact, the title track and opener is as timeless a track as Lightfoot’s ever written. With a simple, falling melody and synthesized accordion accompaniment, he delivers a beautiful campfire song about longing for connection and love, a theme he returns to on the bittersweet “End of All Time” and “Clouds of Loneliness.” In each song, choruses flow organically from the melodic themes introduced in the verses—simple but unforgettable.

Lightfoot’s always fleshed out his albums with stories and evocative, image-filled songs about the Canadian wilderness. Here, we get the haunting “Flying Blind,” a tale of a pilot making his way through the snow and ice, all the while thinking about the friend who advised him not to fly. Then there’s the percussive “Couchiching,” an ode to Orilla, Lightfoot’s birthplace, in which he reaches deep into an imagined, mythic past to envision his final resting place. “The No Hotel” takes on a different landscape, the Amazon, to spin a yarn about “burnt-out shells” and “bed sheets telling lies.” But the album’s centerpiece is “Shellfish,” a dark, lovely catalog of both regret and resolve: “You will not be deserted / By old friends you left alone / You got faith / To meet the cost / And you know you’d best not wait.” The metaphor of the title serves as a warning against couching one’s self in armor to stay safe. “It’s so easy to be shellfish in the sea.”

Here’s hoping Lightfoot’s got many more albums like Harmony left in him.

Elliott Smith
Either/Or On this, Smith’s third full-length release, he pairs his trademark heart-twisting melodies with layered tales of disillusionment and beauty.

[Next Saturday]

The link to the reader's list is:
http://www.pastemagazine.com/action/...rticle_id=3004