Songs with great lyrics...Avoid music gods!

[todamascus]

Let's avoid obvious names like Dylan, Gershwin, etc.

Who do you think in today's music business, alive and working, can write great lyrics?

For me Tom Waits and Sam Phillips are 2 writers with most steady quality performance. Who did I forget?

[antecedent]

Neko Case is one of my favorite contemporary lyricists. She's also a total badass, which I can appreciate.

[bdon19]

I agree with all of the above.

I tend to listen primarily to music with good lyrics...it must be the English major in me.

I adore The National's lyrics (I think the band collabs on the songwriting). Special mention: Jenny Lewis, Belle & Sebastian, Justin Vernon.

And I know we're avoiding music gods, but shout-out to Joni Mitchell, please!

[bigjumps]

Chiming in to agree with everyone so far and add Joanna Newsom.

[Galoup11]

If anyone's interested in densely referential, postmodern rap, Das Racist are incredible:

Chose their song that opens with a hilarious Angelou reference, for obvious reasons.

[ahembree]

If anyone here is into contemporary musicals, Lin-Manuel Miranda put together an incredible book for In The Heights.

[bdon19]

If anyone here is into contemporary musicals, Lin-Manuel Miranda put together an incredible book for In The Heights.

YES! That musical consumed much of my listening time freshman year.

[marlowe]

And I know we're avoiding music gods, but shout-out to Joni Mitchell, please!

That is my preferred musical generation: Joni, James, Carole, CSNY, the Dead.

[Enzian]

Chiming in to agree with everyone so far and add Joanna Newsom.

Just in the realm of rock/folk kinds of music, I'm seconding Newsom - the best, I think - and suggesting her ex (Bill Callahan) as well as the subtly amusing and kind of creepy Cass McCombs. And David Berman of the Silver Jews (also a poet) has written some of my favorite lines.

[TripWillis]

Stephen Merritt, Bradford Cox, Calvin Johnson (and Beck when he's working with Calvin Johnson), later David Bowie (Lodger & Scary Monsters in particular), Dan Bejar, David Byrne, Jarvis Cocker, Wayne Coyne (I'm serious -- listen to "Suddenly Everything Has Changed"), Tobin Sprout (not as big on Bob Pollard), JEFF MANGUM, ... and then the super canonical ones: John Lennon, Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, Neil Young, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan,

[TripWillis]

And while I'm on the subject of Stephen Merritt, has anyone heard the new one, "Andrew in Drag?" Excellent. I never knew that so many great words ended in "-ag."

[koolherc]

If anyone's interested in densely referential, postmodern rap, Das Racist are incredible:

Chose their song that opens with a hilarious Angelou reference, for obvious reasons.

Das Racist is pretty aight.

But they don't match up with traditional stuff like:

Germaine Williams

"I harness the power of the Chakra, remote viewing into darkness,

describing what I see in the process

Stone statues surrounded by neolithic objects:

geoglyphs on the pampas.

A dose of papylamine makes you feel like a dream.

The dreamstate is the playground for the supreme."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHXNrrqjGVE

and

Matthias Bavitz

"There is a hole in front of the shovel

Shovel in front of the brawn

Six billion gorillas for whom the graves yawn

Each within his mulish days to choose his tool of trade

Dueling blades that cued a cruel charade and fuel the flames

Few would clue the crew into the civil

Skip the food and land like you the man

who flew the coop over the pitbulls

Dash back, flashin and compassionate nanopolice that

Sat beneath an avalanche of jagged inadequacies"

and Jaime Meline

"I touch with rusted clutch, then spun out of the dust

and careen into the temples of automated destruct

nanotech bugs in the blood get unplugged

fishing for the fly shit hybrid

I run among the mudskipper swarms through warnings and good morning Beiruits

Little Billy Blunderbuss looking for more recruits

city life is practice casket truancy

that's the rule of you and me, brash unmasked lunacy

friends used to laugh fast, grasped little truth from me

now they check their bags with a staff claspin' Uzis

who deserves the wrath without warning

the same sky for the martyr with a spork scorch New York forfeits

run among the poppy fields order some more clips

store trips are weird but the fear is forceless

Bloomey bought the city of Lego and shitty metal hull

jitters to the floor boards burnt almost aborted

flight of the accidental tourist, morbid

the advertising gods so oddly courtship

godly corporate squads plot these tortures

holiness is hard and it's costing god fortunes"

Edited February 3, 2012 by koolherc

[rawera]

Spencer Krug.

[antecedent]

And I know we're avoiding music gods, but shout-out to Joni Mitchell, please!

Another of my favorites. She's truly a poet as well as a musician.

Thanks for the tip, Galoup11, I will totally check them out!

[TripWillis]

Spencer Krug.

I thought about putting him. Especially on Random Spirit Lover.

She had a name, she had a spirit,

She had a line in the play if you wanted to hear it.

But, a master of disguses,

her demise was her design, they said.

Was it the mending of the gown?

Or the running and the running and the running it around?

She said, "My name and my spirit are both corrupt

and if you hold me close you gotta hold me up."

[Galoup11]

Das Racist is pretty aight.

But they don't match up with traditional stuff like:

Germaine Williams

"I harness the power of the Chakra, remote viewing into darkness,

describing what I see in the process

Stone statues surrounded by neolithic objects:

geoglyphs on the pampas.

A dose of papylamine makes you feel like a dream.

The dreamstate is the playground for the supreme."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHXNrrqjGVE

Very familiar with Canibus, but I'll take DR over his self-seriousness (and, frankly, poor musicianship) any day.

[perrykm2]

I always liked the lyrics to The Clash "Lost in the Supermarket," and I think Joan of Arc/Cap'n Jazz have consistently good lyrics.

I like bands with good music videos, which I think most Lit majors appreciate too.

This song has pretty good lyrics and a nice cutout animation music video. It's about the songwriter's grandfather after his wife died from cancer; it's pretty touching.

[perrykm2]

Hope no one gets angry if I spam 3 more music videos, but they are all excellent.

[perrykm2]

I love so many music videos. It is hard to even say which one I love best.

Edited February 3, 2012 by perrykm2

[perrykm2]

Also, if anyone wants to be Last.fm friends, post your username and I will add you.

[rawera]

I thought about putting him. Especially on Random Spirit Lover.

He's my favorite musician. I would say that's my favorite album of his, but I think I love California Dreamer and KTB too much. Have you seen him live?

[andsoitgoes161]

I can't believe no one has said Ben Gibbard yet! I think he is a poetic genius. I second Justin Vernon, more specifically his Bon Iver records, The Shins (James Mercer) are a fantastic band, Carly Simon, Junip/Jose Gonzalez, and though no one understands the language they use, not even the members of the band themselves, Sigur Ros has to get a shout out for the subjectivity of ambience they create.

[xfgdfrmgpo332]

I think Ben Gibbard was brilliant, but then he completely changed his writing style and is often cringeworthy now.

Some great current or recent songwriters that I like are Ryan Adams, Joanna Newsom, Will Sheff (Okkervil River), Robin Pecknold (Fleet Foxes), John Vanderslice, Sam Quinn (Everybodyfields), the Mountain Goats guy, and Elliott Smith.

[veniente]

Joanna Newsom - "

though my wrists and my waist seemed so easy to break

still, my dear, I would have walked you to the very edge of the water

and they will recognise all the lines of your face

in the face of the daughter of the daughter of my daughter

darling, we will be fine, but what was yours and mine

appears to be a sandcastle that the gibbering wave takes

but if it's all just the same, then will you say my name:

say my name in the morning, so I know when the wave breaks?

Electrifying.

[TripWillis]

Joanna Newsom - "

though my wrists and my waist seemed so easy to break

still, my dear, I would have walked you to the very edge of the water

and they will recognise all the lines of your face

in the face of the daughter of the daughter of my daughter

darling, we will be fine, but what was yours and mine

appears to be a sandcastle that the gibbering wave takes

but if it's all just the same, then will you say my name:

say my name in the morning, so I know when the wave breaks?

Electrifying.

I wanted to say, "Why the long face?"