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The World's Best SongwritersArticle from One Two Testing, August 1985 |
four stars choose their favourite songsters - Fish, Vince Clarke, Edwyn Collins, Chris Difford
Four songwriters choose their favourite songwriters
PETER HAMMILL: "Lost And Found"
JANIS IAN: "Stars"
RICKIE LEE JONES: "Last Chance Texaco"
JONI MITCHELL: "Coyote"
ELTON JOHN/BERNIE TAUPIN: "Someone Saved My Life Tonight"
PAUL SIMON: "America"
ELTON JOHN/BERNIE TAUPIN: "Candle In The Wind"
ROBERT SMITH (CURE): "10.15 On A Saturday Night"
ROLLING STONES: "Fool To Cry"
TAMMY WYNETTE: "Blanket On The Ground"
ELVIS COSTELLO: "Motel Matches"
CAROLE KING: "You've Got A Friend"
SMALL FACES: "Rene"
POLICE: "Every Breath You Take"
PREFAB SPROUT: "Donna Summer"
NOEL COWARD: "I've Been To A Marvellous Party"
JIM WEBB: "Galveston"
CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL: "Run Through The Jungle"
BO DIDDLEY: "Hey, Bo Diddley"
BIG STAR: "September Girls"
He's brilliant — I like all his stuff. This reminds me of when I used to work in a factory, starting really early in the morning; I used to go to sleep to that. Really restful and nice. VC
You can sing about a load of rubbish if you want, but if you do it in a certain way, in the right way, you can make it sound important. If it's a song that gets me, it's because it gets me personally, and I can see what the song is about. I was going to put Dolly Parton down, but I couldn't remember if she wrote her own singles. VC
I don't like all his stuff... I don't like the rockier ones. "Candle In The Wind" brings back young parties, one of those slow records. Him and Bernie Taupin writing together was what did it. VC
It's very personal to me. The touring side of music again, and the idea of being involved with someone outside the business as a form of relaxation, and the feeling of being used...
Again, the way someone like Joni Mitchell can use images — the coyote relating to the rancher. F
I think they're the most promising outfit I've heard in a long while. It's a wonderful title, and so is 'Steve McQueen'; we're thinking of calling Squeeze's new LP 'Norman Wisdom'. There's no particular part of the song that stands out — I just like the feel of everything they do. CD
I surprise myself. For me, it's one of the most beautifully constructed songs of recent times. The emotion that comes from the singer's voice is unequalled by anything I've heard in a long time. I don't like much of Sting's other stuff. CD
I heard it in a market once when I only had 50p on me, and it cost 55p, and they wouldn't let me have it. But I only had to hear it that once, and it really struck me. You tend to get lots of things from other people's songs, like "that chord progression's really clever"
but you try not to rip them off too much. Nothing I do is original, it's just a combination. VC
I've got a version with Glen Campbell. It's just a very poignant song, evocative of a young soldier in Vietnam and I find it more emotive than, say, '19', far closer to that time.
And like all Jim Webb lyrics it's got a very strong narrative rather than just using the verse to fill in between the chorus. Dylan also used to have good narratives on his early stuff, before he went mystical and psychedelic. It's hard to write like that bearing in mind you're restricted by your syntax and rhyme. I admire somebody who can do that. EC
His theme song. I just like the bravado in his lyrics, and how he's always blowing his own trumpet. It utilises the now very hackneyed Bo Diddley beat and I think it was the first track to do so. There's a story, I don't know how authentic it is, that when Bo Diddley first approached Chess Records he originally just slapped the rhythm out on his thigh and said "that's your hit". EC
Noel Coward's been quite an influence on me, especially lyrically. He was quite contemptuous of the banal lyrical tradition of Tin Pan Alley and he transcended all that usual Moon In June stuff. I suppose he came from a more sophisticated social background and his lyrics kind of pioneered social comment... and I think he personified the phrase "high camp".
He also wrote the music, of course, and was using all those typical chords of the 20s and 30s — major sevenths, ninths, thirteenths, but I think the delivery was more important to him that the way the songs were put together. EC
The way she ties up all those images — the escape on the freeway... the coins dipping into the box... Rickie Lee Jones is very-much along Springsteen lines, but I prefer her — the effeminate side. Both male and female can relate to her.
Female vocalists tend to be more tender and more revealing at the same time — male lyricists tend to get pulled into acting, and they draw back from revelations, which is something I've been guilty of. Women just throw it right at you. Dory Previn, and the 'Mythical Kings & Iguanas' is another great one. F
One of the most under rated lyricists. Peter Hammill's album "Over", contains some of the best lyrics about broken relationships and the handling of them. "Lost And Found" is so positive, it was a big influence on me when I was 19, up in Scotland.
Actually, "Lost And Found" was the basis of "Script": the actual song "Script For A Jester's Tear" was based about that song and the whole "Over" album. It was about listening to, and wallowing in, the atmosphere of that particular album. There were a lot of lifts and gameplays in the lyrics of "Script". Hamill's a real poet. F
Lyrically I find Costello very inspiring. He's a contemporary of ours, and I find it very challenging when I hear his songs — I'd like mine to be as good as that, and I work on them in the hope that one day they will be. As for that track, I like its spontaneity, it has urgency. The whole album has that urgent feel to it. CD
"Rene, the dockers' delight..." — the Small Faces were the first band I ever played my cricket bat to. They had that local feel to them, especially for me, as I was brought up in the docklands. CD
Another song about Vietnam and again there's great imagery in this song which is helped by the arrangement. John Fogerty produced and arranged all the Creedence Clearwater Revival records — big, howling feedback and rattling tambourines, a real swamp feel to it... just about my favourite rock and roll guitarist and singer. A great piece of Americana. I keep using this word, but the arrangement is very evocative of the jungle, maybe that's from seeing films of it. It's a real textural piece of music. But nowadays I think people rely too much on the production, not the song. It's got to a stage where the sound of the Fairlight is almost a subliminal hook. If people don't hear it, they don't want to buy the record. EC
Unfortunately it's now been deleted. I hope Big Star re-release it. It was covered somewhat unsuccessfully by the Searchers, recently. It just takes that chiming Beatles Rickenbacker guitar sound to its logical extreme... blows it out of all proportion. It's written by Alex Chilton who was writing at a very early age, 15 or 16 I think. The guitars are really overdriven — one of the best guitar sounds I've ever heard. EC
It's so sad that the relationship broke up. During the "Blue" album, Elton got fed up with Bernie writing such depressing songs — as he was trying to exorcise his marriage break-up through his lyrics.
This song hits that touring thing again..."I'm sleeping with myself tonight/Thank God my music's still alive..." I'm terrible at remembering other people's words.
Bernie wrote as a poet; the way I write in Marillion, because I'm not a musician, I concentrate fully on the words and the delivery of the image in as simple a way as possible to make it easy to understand. F
Janis Ian has this ability to touch. I can imagine the setting "Stars" was written in — the hotel room, when success gets to the stage where you're hanging on by your fingernails. That song was actually first played to me by my mother, when I went home to see her while I was on a big after-tour downer. She just said listen to this, put the record on, and walked out of the room; I was crying my eyes out by the time it finished.
I find the ultimate is when you get a really close personal lyric tied up on such a close parallel with the music. Most of the writers I've chosen have that ability to discuss problems that most people don't experience — particularly the tour "capsule" — yet they do it in a way anyone can understand. F
Their first album, "Three Imaginary Boys", was their best. I learnt that record backwards — I wanted to be The Cure when I was younger. This is really a sad, desperate song, even though it's 'Raunchy and Rocky'. It's got a lot of emotion in it, a good feel to it. VC
I've recently been working with Carole King's daughter, Louise Goffin, who is signed to Stiff, so I've started listening to the Tapestry LP again. "You've Got A Friend" is one of the songs that I remember from that album which reminds me most of early love affairs. CD
Words Up - Better Lyrics |
Here At The Front |
Strings & The Art Of Arranging |
Beyond E Major |
Coverage - Lloyd Cole & The Commotions - Cut Me Down |
Politics & Pop - Are They A Good Mix? |
Under Covers - Cover Versions |
Rhyme Or Reason |
How to Write a Rock Song (Part 1) |
Orchestrating with MIDI (Part 1) |
Producers' Corner |
The Process |
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