My Top Ten Songs About Songwriters

Songwriting is an art form, but some of its most famous artists are more well known for the songs they wrote for other people. Which is why there are no songs in this list about John Lennon, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, et al. Just in case you were wondering...

Someone will still suggest a song about Lennon, you can guarantee it.


10. Nosferatu D2 - I Killed Burt Bacharach

I don't approve of the sentiment, but I love Ben Parker's songwriting, both here and in The Superman Revenge Squad.

9. A - I Love Lake Tahoe

Yeah, the trees are pretty wide
That's where Sonny Bono died.

A - not a great name for band, though I suppose it got them first place in the Bands section of the Yellow Pages.

8. Mercury Rev - Tonite It Shows

This gets in because it's the only song I can think of to mention Cole Porter in its lyrics. (There must be more.) Plus it's much better than Dinner With Gershwin by Donna Summer.

Don't get me wrong: I like Donna Summer, but having watched the video for that, my eyeballs have been scorched by some awful 80s dancing.

See also The Coal Porters, obviously. 

7. Super Furry Animals - The Very Best Of Neil Diamond

Long before the rhinestone-collared shirts and treacly voice made him a household name, Neil Diamond was just a jobbing songwriter in the Brill Building. There he wrote I'm A Believer for The Monkees, among many other gems.

6. The Boo Radleys - Jimmy Webb Is God

You won't get any argument from me on that one, Boos... which is why this isn't the last song about God in this Top Ten.

Wipe away this tear from my eye
Wash away this sadness from my heart
I'm not even fit to tune your guitar
Oh, Jimmy, make me happy...

5. Pulp - Bob Lind (The Only Way Is Down)

Jarvis pays homage to the Elusive Butterfly of 60s folk.

When you think you're treading water, but you're just learning how to drown.
And a song comes on the radio telling you that "The Only Way is Down".
You're out of luck, you're out of time, get out of here.
Your lover just traded you in for the very same model but a much more recent year.
It will not stop, it will get worse from day to day 'til you admit that you're a fuck-up; like the rest of us.

4. Prefab Sprout - The Songs of Danny Galway

From one of the best albums of 2013; and their career. Being a bit dim, I didn't realise that this was written about Jimmy until Miller pointed it out to me.

His melodies inspire whims, his chord changes like Baptist hymns
They lift your spirit til it soars, til you forget that spirit's yours
Sound and word in sweet communion, echoes of a better world
Where chivalry's not dead, we'll look for it instead in the songs of Danny Galway

3. Billy Bragg - Levi Stubbs' Tears

No, Levi Stubbs wasn't a songwriter: he was the lead singer of The Four Tops. Which is probably the only reason this track doesn't get to Number One with a bullet... in most other Top Tens, Billy's heartbreaking Motown tribute would be unstoppable.

Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong
Are here to make right everything that's wrong
Holland & Holland, Lamont Dozier too
Are here to make it all OK with you

2. Ben Folds & Nick Hornby - Doc Pomus

Ben & Nick pay tribute to one half of the classic Pomus/Shuman songwriting team. This song made me want to read more about Doc Pomus's life. Stricken by polio as a young boy, Pomus refused to be "one of those happy cripples", pouring his heartache directly into the hits...

And out they pour
The hits and the misses
'Turn Me Loose', 'Lonely Avenue'
And down in Nashville, Elvis sings 'Suspicion':
Pomus / Shuman 1962

1. Rumer - P.F. Sloan

And so we return again, inevitably, to Jimmy Webb, with a classic example of his own songwriting, in tribute to a songwriting hero from his early days. Webb's recording of this record is beautiful... but Rumer took it to another level.

Yes, Jimmy Webb is god.



They wrote the songs that made the whole world sing. Which song gets you singing about songwriters?

My Top Ten Songs About Bruce Springsteen

This year is the 40th anniversary of Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., the debut album by the one artist whose music has meant more to me throughout my life than any other (sorry, Moz). While I still don't feel able to compile a Top Ten Springsteen Songs... maybe I never will... here's the closest I can get to a tribute. Ten songs that mention The Boss...


10. Ezio - Bruce Springsteen

Only just discovered Ezio in the course of compiling this Top Ten. They're from Cambridge. You wouldn't know it...

I'll never be the boss just lower management I guess
I've never had a Thunderbird
A beat up Volvo is less absurd
I'd do anything to impress you
I'd do anything to caress you
I grew up in a town called Whittlesey
I've never been to New Jersey
I don't know too much about you
But your friend said you like Bruce Springsteen

9. Rick Springfield - Bruce

Jessie's Girl coveter Rick Springfield finds himself confused for his more famous (half-)namesake. A witty song about not being as famous as that other guy.

8. Titus Andronicus - A More Perfect Union 

Fellow New Jersey-ites Titus Andronicus mix Bruce with Billy Bragg on this, one of their best songs, when they declare...

No, I never wanted to change the world
But I'm looking for a new New Jersey
Because tramps like us
Baby, we were born to die

7. The Gaslight Anthem - Meet Me By the River's Edge

Another New Jersey act, unkindly dubbed by some critics a "Springsteen tribute band", and tracks like this, baby, they were born to back up that argument. "No surrender, my Bobby Jean" the GA sing, amid lyrics that sound like Bruce's songbook chopped up and reassembled Bowie-style. But, as I've said before, if you're gonna wear your influences on your sleeve... these cufflinks are 24 carat gold.

6. Nosferatu D2 - Springsteen

Ben Parker released one album as Nosferatu D2 (with his brother Jamie) prior to taking on the solo mantle of Superman Revenge Squad. This song, a tirade against Ben's hometown of Croydon, was written around a loop of the guitar from Springsteen's 'My Hometown' before Ben ditched that in favour of a somewhat more aggressive backing track.

Throw away your autographs
Of people you don't care about
Andy Peters, Andy Crane
They're all the same, they're all the same

5. Lana Del Rey - American

It was obvious the second I first heard Video Games that Lana was a Springsteen groupie. And like Titus Andronicus before her, she too is Born To Die.

Play house, put my favorite record on
Get down, get your crystal method on
You were, like, dark tan driving round the city
Flirting with the girls like you're so pretty
"Springsteen is the king, don't you think?"
 I was, like, "hell, yeah, that guy can sing."

4. Frank Turner - Redemption

 There are few bigger Bruce fans than Frank Turner. Frank just gets it...

I was walking home to my house through the snow from the station 
When Springsteen came clear in my headphones with a pertinent question
Oh, is love really real and can any of us hope for redemption?
Or are we all merely biding our time down to lonely conclusions?

3. Bran Van 3000 - Speed

In which the Bran Vanners pay tribute with a Born To Run rap. God, that really shouldn't work. And yet...

Sliup - Ummm - Crack
Goes the backscreen door
She wanted to go for coffee
But I sleep an hour more
See Mary dancing across the porch
She put her rolled up Ziggys in her rock and roll jersey
Jersey, she was born to run
She was the spirit of midnight
She was blinded by the light
She was holed up in jungleland
Straight up
The rock and roll big boss
Turnpike down by the river of desire
Just off Thunder Road
Where you catch her in the Tenth Avenue
Freeze out
She was lost in a flood
Mary, Queen of Arkansas
Dreaming of a Cadillac ranch with a hungry heart
But most of all she was born in the USA
Asbury Park, New Jersey
Inner state babe
To be exact she was her own rock and roll video
Rolls Royce, low riding
Speed climbing, driving by the sea
Making mad love on other people's private property
While being on the run from the local law for unpaid parking tickets!

...it bloody does.

2. Prefab Sprout - Cars & Girls

There's tremendous irony at work here: Paddy McAloon (of all people!) having a sly, if affectionate, dig at Bruce for being a lyrical romantic.

Brucie dreams life's a highway, too many roads bypass my way
Or they never begin. 
Innocence coming to grief
At the hands of life's stinking car thief, 
That's my concept of sin.
Does heaven wait all heavenly over the next horizon?
But look at us now, quit driving, 
Some things hurt more much more than cars and girls.

That said, Paddy can't help but conclude:

Brucie's thoughts - Pretty streamers
Guess this world needs its dreamers 
May they never wake up.

And the same goes for you, Paddy. 
  
1. Eric Church - Springsteen

One of my favourite songs of last year. It's not so much a tribute to Bruce as a tribute to the kind of golden sunset nostalgia he used to reflect on songs like Glory Days and Bobby Jean. Good times...

When I think about you, I think about 17.
I think about my old Jeep.
I think about the stars in the sky.
Funny how a melody, sounds like a memory.
Like a soundtrack to a July, Saturday night....

I don't expect anybody else will have much of an opinion about this Top Ten... but it's my blog and I've got to keep my number one fan happy!