For me: Springsteen, Stipe, Farrar, Cat Power, some Band of Horses songs... Gord Downie of The Tragically Hip occasionally does this kind of work... and though some friends of mine aren't fans, Tracy Chapman
What a misogynist I am. Just realized that Lucinda Williams and Emmylou Harris are glaringly absent from my list. Two of the best writers on the planet.
Love Jackson wrote:I'd add Steve Earle, Ben Gibbard, the guy from Dawes to that list.
Good call on Taylor Goldsmith from Dawes. So freaking good.
Steve Earle was one I wrestled with and ultimately decided to exclude from my list. In my book, he's a brilliant songwriter and a great lyricist, but not quite a poet in the strict sense of the word.
Woody Guthrie, Arlo Guthrie, Blaze Foley, Bruce Springsteen, George Jones, Townes Van Zandt, Gene Clark, Dylan, Pete Seeger, Neil Young, Skip Spence, Andrew Bird, Ryan Adams... there are many more... of course Jay Farrar is out there...
It occurs to me that there are only a handful of songwriters out there that I consider to be true poets. Not just good songwriters or even just good lyricists... I'm talking about songwriters whose lyrics stand alone without the music, that evoke such powerful images and emotion to near about knock the wind out of you.
I've listed mine below (in no particular order, but I'm pretty sure exhaustive). Folks may disagree with some of these, but that's what's great about art -- it's subjective. Who are yours?
Townes Van Zandt
James McMurtry
John K. Samson
Greg Brown
Jay Farrar
Bob Dylan
Bruce Springsteen
Joe Pug
Conor Oberst
Tom Waits
Craig Finn