Most poetic/literary songwriters of the last ten years....

[gitfiddle]

Ok. I just did a search, and I didn’t find a thread like this, so here it is.

Who are the best songwriters of the last decade? By this, I don’t mean songwriters who have written good songs, but songwriters whose work is near flawless, in that, for example, they never seem to place a lame phrase in a song just to maintain the rhyme scheme.

For instance, I consider Ben Harper to be a very talented song writer, but from time to time he’ll put some lines in there that are just plain stupid, e.g.:

Fire makes it burn and water makes it turn
We must still be here living on earth
They keep telling me jesus walked on water
He shoulda surfed

So, what I want to know is who y’all think are the most flawless songwriters of the last decade are and why.

The requirements for posting:

• You have to try to explain what it is that strikes you about the lyrics
• You have to give an examples of their lyrics

I’m especially interested in rappers that fit this description, as its probably the genre I know the fewest really poetic lyricists.

I got to thinking about this thread as a result of two particular artists. Both of whom demonstrate my attraction to formidable use of images. The first is Andrew Bird:

“Scythian Empires”:

five day forecast bring black tar rains and hellfire
while handpicked handler’s kid cloves tear at the inseams

their Halliburton attache cases are useless

while Scotch-Guard Macintoshes shall be carbonized

The other artist – whom I would say is perhaps the most talented songwriter I know of, whose songs I find to be absolutely flawless musically and lyrically – is Iron & Wine. His lyrics remind me of a Faulkner novel (and I don’t think I’m the first to say that). The images, while often dark and depressing, are absolutely stunning:

“Peace Beneath the City”:

Here’s a prayer for the body buried by the interstate
Mother of a soldier, a tree in a forest up in flames
Black valley, peace beneath the city
Where the women hear the washboard rhythm in their bosom when they say
"Give me good legs and a Japanese car and show me a road”

“Freedom Hangs like Heaven”:

mary, carry your babe
bound up tight like lips around a whimper
your fingers over my face
blind eyed Samson driven to the temple
and night birds digging until dawn

I feel that Sam Beam (who is “Iron & Wine”) has a way of not only using images but expressing profound feelings or ideas in such concise phrases, the first example that comes to my mind is from “House by the Sea”:

And I’ve been sparing my neck from their chain
And they’ve been changing the sound of my name

Which also brings me to the point that many of these examples will be subjective, they will move people differently, and you can’t always explain why. Just try. I think the reason the above couplet struck is that I’ve lived abroad for about four years now in Asia and Europe, and I and, more so, many of my dear friends have dealt with different forms of discrimination. “Changing the sound of my name” just seems like a profound but utterly simple way of saying “They’re making me into something I’m not.”

Next, I might be stretching my own rules here, but I’d like to include Zach de la Rocha from Rage Against the Machine, only because we’re talking about the last ten years here, and the Battle of Los Angeles came out in '99. Nowadays, when I listen to RATM’s earlier stuff, I’m sort of turned off by the “Go fuck yourself” aggressiveness of the lyrics, but I think that their last album showed that de la Rocha was really creating a voice and showing that he was a talented writer:

“Maria”:

Tha sun ablaze as Marias foot
Touches the surface of sand
On Northern Land
As human contraband

The late Chris Whitley (you might be noticing a trend towards the folk/alt-country/country genres, which is strange for someone who claims to hate country music):

Kick the Stones:

Everything is silent
Night upon the rocks
I’m over by the roadhouse
With them rusted engine blocks
A ghost town with a gold mine

There are some other lyricists that I would probably include in this, but I’m not sure right now: Thom Yorke (Radiohead and solo), Ray LaMontagne, Jose Gonzalez, Cedric Bixler Zavala (The Mars Volta), Tom Waits,

[gitfiddle]

really? Nothing?

[Horatio_Hellpop]

If a songwriter jams his/her stuff up with references I need a graduate degree to understand (I’m lookin’ at YOU, Kate Bush), I don’t necessarily think more of them for it. In fact, I might think him an insecure intellectual bully.

As far as songwriters with a genuinely poetic/literary sensibility, I’d go with Eliot Smith and Steve Earle.

[gitfiddle]

Including “literary” in the title was a mistake. As you can see from the ones I mentioned, there aren’t any blatant references to works of art or literature.

I just wanted to say that I’m looking for songwriters whose lyrics themselves can be looked at as works of poetry, regardless of the music. I don’t mean that they make references to works of literature, but that would be an interesting thread.

[janis_and_c0]

I’d say Paul Simon fits this criteria… He’s my favorite songwriter of all time… Some of his lyrics give me chills, even after I’ve listened to them hundreds of times.
“I believe in the future we will suffer no more, maybe not in my lifetime, but in yours, I feel sure”
He didn’t win the inaugural George Gershwin award for nothin’ ya know XD

[rikc]

The last ten years? Damn. The past decade has seen more big names in production and genre-pushing than songcraft, if you ask me, but there are a few names I can think of.

I would say Jeff Tweedy of Wilco fits the bill. “Jesus Inc.” is one of the most beautiful songs of the decade, if you ask me. Simple lines like “You were right about the stars/each one is a setting sun” hit me in ways only that great songwriters can hit.

Sufjan Stevens might be able to convince me he’s worthy of this thread, but I’d want another album to be sure.

[gitfiddle]

@janis_and_c0

I’d say Paul Simon fits this criteria… He’s my favorite songwriter of all time… Some of his lyrics give me chills, even after I’ve listened to them hundreds of times.
“I believe in the future we will suffer no more, maybe not in my lifetime, but in yours, I feel sure”
He didn’t win the inaugural George Gershwin award for nothin’ ya know XD

Paul Simon is one of the people I had to restrain from mentioning. He is certainly one of the most talented songwriters I know of, but does he fit the last ten years criteria? Has he had any new stuff out in the last ten years? If so, is it worthy?

[gitfiddle]

@rikc

The last ten years? Damn. The past decade has seen more big names in production and genre-pushing than songcraft, if you ask me, but there are a few names I can think of.

I would say Jeff Tweedy of Wilco fits the bill. “Jesus Inc.” is one of the most beautiful songs of the decade, if you ask me. Simple lines like “You were right about the stars/each one is a setting sun” hit me in ways only that great songwriters can hit.

Sufjan Stevens might be able to convince me he’s worthy of this thread, but I’d want another album to be sure.

Totally agree with you on Tweedy.

I was thinking about this thread the other day while listening to Stevens, though, and I don’t think I’d include him (I only have his “Illinois” album, so maybe there’s better stuff out there). Remember, that doesn’t mean I think he’s a mediocre songwriter, just that I didn’t think, at the time, that I’d put him the flawless category.

[Zeke_N.Destroi]

I don’t think you can insist that a songwriter never blow a line or play slave to the rhyme - even the best do that down throughout history. I found more than a few in the examples you gave. Good poetry depends as much on the audience as the poet.

I’d put the best of Bob Schneider up against most comers. Horses and Ponies is a devastating song - the beauty is that you can’t really put your finger on why.

…The back alley spiders with their crooked little grins
And the underwater snakes and their tobacco tins
And the little mamas boys with their banged up shins
They all took their chances again and again…
As for rappers, I’m white and so far out of the scene that it’s “here there be dragons” but Eminem is a hell of a good poet - except when he does stupid stuff such as “Ass Like That.”

Taken from Toy Soldiers - Eminem
…And even though the battle was won, I feel like we lost it
I spent so much energy on it, honestly Im exhausted
Im so caught it I almost feel like Im the one who caused it
This aint what Im in hip-hop for, its not why I got in it

Eminen has a natural feel for the language and uses some pretty complex and inventive rhymes.

[Petrobey_Mavromihalis]

In the last decade?

Leonard Cohen.

And in the four or so decades before that.

Recent proof?

@Alexandra Leaving (2001)

As someone long prepared for the occasion;
In full command of every plan you wrecked—
Do not choose a coward’s explanation
that hides behind the cause and the effect

@Dear Heather(2004)

Dear Heather
Please walk by me again
With a drink in your hand
And your legs all white
From the winter

And he can still do it live:
Glastonbury 2008 Watch out, halfway through, for history’s best ever keyboard solo.

[Marley23]

Hi everyone, just a reminder:

Our guideline is to limit copyright-protected song quotes to five lines or less. Please offer a link to the full lyics if you want to share more than that.

[Half_Man_Half_Wit]

Well, the OP already covers most of my picks, but, all too often overlooked, I’d submit John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats fame, and also as one of my all-time favourites, the great Nick Cave, who’s surely wrote the odd verse according to rhyme, but is, at his best, equal to all the greatest, and sometimes a hair above them.

[janis_and_c0]

@gitfiddle

Paul Simon is one of the people I had to restrain from mentioning. He is certainly one of the most talented songwriters I know of, but does he fit the last ten years criteria? Has he had any new stuff out in the last ten years? If so, is it worthy?

Absoutely. 1998 saw the Production of the Capeman. Even though it flopped on Broadway, his lyrics were, as usual, breathtaking. He’s put out two albums **You’re the One ** (2000) and **Surprise ** (2006) and a single since then.
Here are a few examples:

*If I could play all the memories
In the neck of my guitar
I’d write a song called
“Senorita with a necklace of tears”

A mother murmurs in twilight sleep
And draws her babies closer.
With hush-a-byes for sleepy eyes,
…
To drive away despair
She says a wartime prayer.

I figure that once upon a time I was an ocean
But now I’m a mountain range
Something unstoppable set into motion
Nothing is different, but everything’s changed*

Citizen of the Planet

In all fairness, I didn’t see the last 10 years bit in the OP. However, I still think the Simon had remained one of the great songwriters of this decade, or any decade, even if he doesn’t “represent” the current generation. That being said, I think one of the hallmarks of a truly great song is that it has a timeless quality. That’s true of almost all of Simon’s work.

[gitfiddle]

@Zeke N. Destroi

I don’t think you can insist that a songwriter never blow a line or play slave to the rhyme - even the best do that down throughout history. I found more than a few in the examples you gave. Good poetry depends as much on the audience as the poet.

Just out of curiosity, which of my examples are you talking about?

[gitfiddle]

@Marley23

Hi everyone, just a reminder:

Our guideline is to limit copyright-protected song quotes to five lines or less. Please offer a link to the full lyics if you want to share more than that.

Noted. Sorry 'bout that.