You’ve also gotta love a rhyme like “Just because I dress like this//Doesn’t mean I’m a communist”.

I don’t want to pick up on the Dylan thread a week on, but I was surprised that no-one at all leapt to his defence. He is pretty much the most important songwriter of the 20th century. In terms of making pop music into an art form; in terms of making folk culturally and politically relevant at a really important time in American history; in terms of taking folk electric and melding two genres that would be the equivalent of melding trad jazz and casiotone today; by moving from the folk movement to a unique artistic voice; and that’s just the first five years*.

You’re still allowed to not like him; I’ve yet to fall in love with the Beatles. But I was surprised that no-one stood up for poor old Bob.

*or ten. Can’t remember the exact dates.

If you try the best you can
The best you can is good enough

I’ve heard that it came from a conversation that Thom Yorke had with his girlfriend during a fit of writer’s block.

I disagree with you about Neil Hannon though. That may be purely because I have an unshakable platonic man-crush on him, but I do really love a lot of his lyrics, although I will admit that he’s often more musically than lyrically competent.

You don’t really love me and I don’t really mind,
’cause I don’t love anybody,
That stuff is just a waste of time.
Your place or mine?

I have to admit, my list of songwriters to put ahead of him would be very different, but I guess that’s a matter of taste.

To get things going a bit, here are some songwriting names I would put ahead of Dylan: Prince, George Clinton, Fishbone, John Martyn, Tom Waits, the Eagles, Gang of Four, Frank Zappa, Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone (admittedly some of those have great lyrics, and some are more on the Van Halen end of things!).

Don’t want to overstate it, but if they can’t play, their in the wrong game.

I’m going to disagree with you on one point – lyric writing is a very important *part* of songwriting. I think it is as important as the music. The music hooks me in, but if the lyrics are bad, the song is unlikely to have any real long-term appeal for me. I think I’m relatively unusual in this – plenty of people will never register a lyric and do not care.

The only reason everyone’s commenting on lyrics is because I begged the question by talking about rhyming!

Songwriting is not lyric writing, and the most important aspect is the music. I’d argue that we get far more meaning from the music than the literal meaning of the words in any given pop song anyway.

I have to say I can’t think of anything good to say about Oasis. I do think Nick Cave has a few good songs, though he’s essentially a Leonard Cohen tribute act.

If we’re going for controversy, at risk of a lynching, I’d say that Bob Dylan is the worst culprit for what Padraic describes: – turgid derivative music with banal lyrics performed extremely badly.

There I was thinking slagging off rhyming was controversial and you knock it right out of the ball park.

I love lyrics over music – more than instrumental music or unaccompanied poetry – but if you are going to sing over music, you have a great opportunity to add an extra layer of meaning/interest/storytelling/emotion, and simply plugging in some standard “love/above” rhyming couplets and thinking “that will do” is missing a trick. It also detracts from your music. Oasis would be THE prime example of this were it not for the fact that the music underneath is all turgid, anthemic faux-hippy pub-rock toss and it’s a blessed relief to have anything to distract you from it (even trite rhyming couplets).

I’m the guy you met on the Northern line with the recording equipment.

It’s interesting that most people are commenting on lyrics. I’d say that was my pet hate! Words over music. Songwriters whose output is fourth rate poetry with dull or disposable music in the background (not saying the names mentioned so far are or are not guilty of that). A song has to be musically interesting before it’s anything else. That doesn’t mean it has to be complicated (though equally, it doesn’t mean it has to be simple, which some people insist on). Nick Cave is a good example of that, I think.

Great site! Keep up the good work.