[John Isbell]

"And I will raise my hand into the night-time sky
And count the stars that shine in your eye"

Van Morrison, "Sweet Thing", off my favorite album ever recorded, Astral Weeks.

Van Morrison - Sweet Thing - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QzDWIOUnM0

[John Isbell]

Maybe you think that love would tie you down
You ain't got the time to hang around
Maybe you think that love was made for fools
So it makes you wise to break the rules

Oh, little girl
In that case I don't want no part
Cause that would only break my heart
But if you feel like loving me
If you got the notion
I second that emotion

The great Smokey Robinson.


Smokey Robinson. I Second That Emotion. - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv9cWgkpIZ4

[Max Goodman]

Sometimes words can serve me well
And sometimes words can go to hell

This nifty couplet from Harry Chapin's "The Story of a Life" gains, like most good lyrics, from the melody and from its context within the song, but I think it can stand without that help.

I'd heard very few of Chapin's songs until picking up a used compilation CD recently. That's led me to seek out more of his songs, and: Wow.

[Kate Benedict]

Two words: Bobbie Gentry

She was a divine lyricist/songwriter/singer and for some reason, at a young age, she left it all behind. I'd have to say that the songwriters who influenced me most as a young poet were Paul Simon and Bobbie Gentry. "Ode to Billy Joe" was full of detail and yet left the main detail out, an early lesson for me in negative capability.

Her point of view was feminist, and before the second wave crested. Here's a marvelous song about girlhood, the girl pleading with her father to take her to town and give her a respite from the dreary farm. Note the chores she has to do, and the literal shoe shining.

Papa, won't you let me go to town with you
Papa, I'm feeling so down and blue
You just gotta come around, please do
Papa won't you let me go to town with you

There's a blue dress at Dindy's I'd give the world to see again
I need some hand lotion and some powder from the five and ten
Buy us some chocolate and I'll make you a pretty pie
If you don't let me go I'll just die

Papa, won't you let me go to town with you
Papa, I'm feeling so down and blue
You just gotta come around, please do
Papa won't you let me go to town with you

I gotta pick up a pattern, Aunt Nora's making me a dress
I scrubbed it this morning, what d'ya mean this floor's a mess?
I done everything you said, and then some ya didn't say to do
You just gotta take me with you

Papa, won't you let me go to town with you
Papa, I'm feeling so down and blue
You just gotta come around, please do
Papa, won't you let me go to town with you

Looky here Papa, I found your other Sunday shoe
I shined it and I shined it till it looks all brand spankin' new
Seems like a year I've been waiting for today
If you let me go I won't get in your way

Papa, won't you let me go to town with you
Papa, I'm feeling so down and blue
You just gotta come around, please do
Papa won't you let me go to town with you

=====================

And the piece de resistance:

Ode to Billy Joe

It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day
I was out choppin' cotton, and my brother was balin' hay
And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat
And mama hollered out the back door, y'all, remember to wipe your feet
And then she said, I got some news this mornin' from Choctaw Ridge
Today, Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

And papa said to mama, as he passed around the blackeyed peas
Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense; pass the biscuits, please
There's five more acres in the lower forty I've got to plow
And mama said it was shame about Billy Joe, anyhow
Seems like nothin' ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge
And now Billy Joe MacAllister's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

And brother said he recollected when he, and Tom, and Billie Joe
Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show
And wasn't I talkin' to him after church last Sunday night?
I'll have another piece-a apple pie; you know, it don't seem right
I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge
And now ya tell me Billie Joe's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

And mama said to me, child, what's happened to your appetite?
I've been cookin' all morning, and you haven't touched a single bite
That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by today
Said he'd be pleased to have dinner on Sunday, oh, by the way
He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge
And she and Billy Joe was throwing somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge

A year has come and gone since we heard the news 'bout Billy Joe
And brother married Becky Thompson; they bought a store in Tupelo
There was a virus going 'round; papa caught it, and he died last spring
And now mama doesn't seem to want to do much of anything
And me, I spend a lot of time pickin' flowers up on Choctaw Ridge
And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge

[John Isbell]

I agree, "Ode to Billie Joe" is tremendous songwriting. The scene that kills me is the dinner table - "Pass the biscuits please." As you say, everything that matters is not there on the page.

Cheers,
John

[John Isbell]

Listening to CCR yesterday, doing "Midnight Special":

Yonder come Miss Rosie, how in the world did you know?
By the way she wears her apron and the clothes she wore
Umbrella on her shoulder, piece of paper in her hand
She come to see the governor, she wants to free her man.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T00eJSQimIk


Leadbelly's original is a little different:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu7gafphe9M

Cheers,
John

[Roger Slater]

I'm partial to Odetta's version.

[John Isbell]

What a lovely voice! I've heard the name, but never heard her sing. Thank you, Roger.

Cheers,
John

[James Brancheau]

Without the music, and that particular voice, a lot of lyrics as poetry fail. That's what I love about poetry. We do this without accompaniment, or having to say, or sing, a thing. Our voice is word choice. There's nothing so pure. Or unavoidably honest, ideally. I find that particularly relevant today. That said, there's a lot to be learned from Neil Young's vulnerable pitch, or any number of Morrissey/Smith's songs, like There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, for example. The 70s Stones. And on and on. Voice is everything, or close to it. So, in terms of voice, what writer does this for you?

[John Isbell]

Hi James,

I think I've never seen this better put: "Our voice is word choice. There's nothing so pure. Or unavoidably honest." It's why I don't do multimedia.
As to your writer question, I think you mean writers who sing? So, Bob Dylan sells his lyrics superbly. Van Morrison. To my mind, Bob Marley, who manages to sound happy and sad simultaneously. Joni Mitchell. Paul Simon. Neil Young. Lou Reed. But I'm listing the great lyricists. I'm sure folks would want Leonard Cohen in here. Shane McGowan of the Pogues. Billy Bragg. Rod Stewart (yes, Rod Stewart). Solomon Burke.
Two of my favorite rock singers are Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin, who wrote little, though Aretha's hard to match for making a song her own. In jazz, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, to whom the same applies. And the great Nina Simone, who did write lyrics. Is this what you meant? Maybe the Reverend Julius Cheeks of the Sensational Nightingales. In the Blues, Mississippi John Hurt. Robert Johnson. Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf (who both did covers). Sonny Boy Williamson. John Lee Hooker. And of course Hank Williams.
Ian Curtis of Joy Division. Winston Rodney of Burning Spear.
That's probably enough. Classical singers rarely write (Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, for instance).

Cheers,
John

NB the voice of Blind Willie Johnson went into space with Voyager. He wrote his own stuff.
Update: Bessie Smith. Stevie Wonder. Johnny Rotten.