The 20 best American songwriters of all time
Ask Bob Dylan, Lou Reed or Taylor Swift, and they’ll confirm that the act of songwriting might seem like one of those mythical and unknowable art forms. Reserved for only those naturally blessed with equal parts empathy, wit, and expertise, crafting the perfect song can be daunting for even the most determined and ambitious artists. But the truth is that songwriting is a discipline, one that requires attention, practice, determination, and a hell of a lot of luck.
As it turns out, a great songwriter can come from anywhere. Across more than seven decades of American popular music, genius wordsmiths and mind-blowing musicians have come from all 50 states, a variety of backgrounds, and a whole spectrum of races. Songwriting talent is one of the rare skills that can truly come from anyone.
There certainly hasn’t been a lack of brilliant song creators over the decades. From foundational blues purists to experimental format breakers, America has been one of the best places for songwriters to take their ideas to the rest of the world. With folklore and discovery baked into its very DNA, the United States encourages its inhabitants to explore. To take that vast lineage and make something truly timeless is a rare feat, but as this list shows, it happens generation after generation.
As is always the case with lists like these, some massively important figures had to be left on the cutting room floor. So with all due respect, our apologies to Hank Williams, Stevie Wonder, Stevie Nicks, Walter Becker/Donald Fagen, Jack White, Warren Zevon, Elliott Smith, Chuck Berry, Fiona Apple, Frank Ocean, Jeff Tweedy, Smokey Robinson, Dolly Parton, Todd Rundgren, and Tom Waits, plus an innumerable number of additional songwriters who have coloured more than 70 years of American popular music.
The 20 greatest American songwriters:
20. Tom Petty
When talking about the legacy of small-town America, it’s all about coming across as genuine. While it’s easy to see through the more flaccid elements of some rock and rollers, Tom Petty never had an ingenuine body in his body when working with the Heartbreakers.
Going through Petty’s discography, his knowledge of a good hook and the simplicity behind his lyrics have allowed fans to soak in his words every time they come on the radio. Although songs like ‘Free Fallin’ and ‘I Won’t Back Down’ can be played on car radios until the end of time, the power comes not from the flashy playing but from unwavering conviction. Although Bob Dylan might have broken down barriers, Tom Petty is the closest successor to Woody Guthrie that the rock world has to offer.
19. Taylor Swift
More so than any other modern artist, Taylor Swift simply is the American songwriter of the day. If you haven’t spent a second of your time bawling your eyes out to ‘All Too Well’, getting cathartic with ‘Better Than Revenge’, or prowling the inside of your feelings to ‘August’, then you’re probably not the majority of Americans who have by and large embraced Swift as the most consistent and recognisable voice in modern music.
If you’re still sceptical, spend some time with ‘My Tears Ricochet’, ‘State of Grace’, or ‘Love Story’, songs that come straight from the brain of Swift. Whether she’s bouncing between genres or tapping into the thin line between reality and fantasy (some songs like ‘Dear John’ don’t really get to live in fantasy land), Swift has crafted a discography that remains untouchable compared to her peers. It’s put her in rarified air and will keep her there for a very long time.
18. Dee Dee Ramone
Debate it all you want: Dee Dee Ramone invented punk rock. The bowl-cut rocking bassist for New York pioneers the Ramones blasted off each song with a rapid-fire “One, two, three, four!” count, but his contributions went well beyond that. As the band’s most prominent songwriter, Dee Dee was responsible for giving the Ramones their identity and voice. Even though he was known as a troublemaker and occasionally a legendary fuck-up, Dee Dee’s lyrics reveal a surprisingly astute mind.
Whether it was the bubblegum appeal of ‘Rockaway Beach’, the poison-tipped political rhetoric of ‘Bonzo Goes to Bitburg’, the streetcorner grit of ‘53rd and 3rd’ or the drug-fueled despair of ‘Chinese Rock’, Dee Dee could be funnier, wittier, and more emotionally resonant than a punk like him had any right to be. In the process, he created one of the least likely, but most enjoyable canons that remain essential to the fabric of American pop culture.
17. Kendrick Lamar
It’s hard to discount the immense value rappers and hip-hop artists have brought to the art of songwriting. While many aspects of the genre can feel depleted of emotional substance outside of the intoxicating swagger of bruising braggadocios that permeated hip-hop at the turn of the century. While the 1990s may have seen a group of artists such as Tupac Shakur and A Tribe Called Quest deliver cleverly crafted tracks that reflected the America they were crafted in, it took Kendrick Lamar to reinvent the genre for a new generation.
With good kid, m.A.A.d city in 2012, Lamar set himself apart as one of the new role models of the songwriting community. A combination of unadulterated rhymes were neatly put together with unique beats that transformed the Compton rapper’s life. It could have been a one-hit wonder. However, Lamar has continued to change not only his own style but the perception of hip-hop in general with subsequent releases with his 2016 LP To Pimp A Butterfly, arguably one of the best albums of the 21st century. Lamar’s work will last longer than most.
16. Loretta Lynn
One thing was certain: Loretta Lynn didn’t take any shit. Ever. The Kentucky-born country singer had a singular eye and ear for a new type of woman in America, one that could do whatever she wanted. Whether that was taking a contraceptive pill, finding her own man, making her own name outside of her family, or simply kicking some other girl’s ass, Lynn never minced words. In the clean-cut world of Nashville country in the 1960s, Lynn was downright dangerous.
Although best known for classic tracks like ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter’, Lynn’s real niche was in pushing the boundaries of what women could say. Tracks like ‘Fist City’, ‘Rated X’, ‘The Pill’, and ‘Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ On Your Mind)’ challenged every boundary put up by patriarchal society and the male-run music business. Lynn never apologised and never compromised, turning her into a true icon of both liberation and unisex celebration.
15. Prince
Most songwriters must spend years refining their craft before they have something that works. Even if an artist has 100 songs under their belt, it doesn’t mean anything if they don’t have that X-factor that touches people’s hearts. Just like most things musical, though, there isn’t anything that Prince hasn’t done better somewhere else.
Aside from his impressive talents as an instrumentalist, ‘The Purple One’ has earned a reputation as a musical genius, often switching different styles from rock, soul, funk and R&B while still maintaining his signature sound. Whereas most other artists can hope to find their signature sound somewhere along the line, not many can manage to sound like Joni Mitchell, The Beatles, James Brown and Parliament Funkadelic throughout just one album. While he may have left the music world far too soon, all of Prince’s contemporaries can only sit back and marvel at the treasure trove he left behind.
14. Brian Wilson
When The Beatles first arrived on the scene, most of the music world had to undergo a major course correction. Although The Beach Boys may have had hits with dozens of odes to surfing and cars, their reputation as preppy boys compared to the Fab Four wasn’t lost on bandleader Brian Wilson. Despite Mike Love’s insistence not to mess with the formula, Wilson’s musical imagination made for some of the most outlandish songs of the ‘60s.
Across their psychedelic period, Wilson painted one masterpiece after another, utilising the studio band The Wrecking Crew to create musical brilliance across albums like Pet Sounds. Even when using chords that shouldn’t work in context, Wilson still finds ways to make some of the greatest songs ever written, like ‘God Only Knows’ and ‘Good Vibrations’. Not everything may have been golden in the Beach Boys’ catalogue, but when listening to a song like ‘Surf’s Up’, listeners hear the sound of a genius’s mind on fire.
13. Lucinda Williams
The majority of America isn’t sprawling cities or bright lights. It’s dirty, dusty, and relatively unadorned. It’s truck tires, backwood rivers, or gravel roads. The idea that America can somehow always be traced back to the simple pleasures and everyday hardships of the open spaces that occupy the 50 states isn’t revolutionary, but it can sometimes sound that way when Lucinda Williams is shining a light on it.
Blending roots rock, country, and a hardened exterior that would make Keith Richards think twice about crossing her path, Williams has been the poet laureate of regular America for more than four decades. If songs like ‘Can’t Let Go’ and ‘Unsuffer Me’ don’t quite resonate with the softer sides of your brain, steely rock tracks like ‘Real Life Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings’ will be enough to convert you. It’s not flashy or overindulgent, just like Williams herself.
12. Patti Smith
As the punk wave slowly started to take over the world, songwriting tended to fall by the wayside. In lieu of telling stories, fans of acts like The Clash and The Ramones were more concerned with putting safety pins through their cheeks and making their brand of chaos wherever they went. While most had their odes to self-destruction, Patti Smith was looking to tear down the norms with every song she sang.
Putting a poetic spin on rock and roll, Smith’s first handful of records, like Horses and Easter, are full of the fire that punk is all about, whether it’s odes to self-expression or processing different stages of grief. Although songs like ‘People Have the Power’ might come across as cliche to some, nothing is contrived about them when they come out of Smith’s mouth. The Sex Pistols may have been chasing a noise, but Patti Smith wanted to make the Earth move with her words.
11. Jerry Leiber/Mike Stoller
As rock and roll began to take shape in the mid-1950s, somebody had to grab the reigns and guide the new genre. Two white rhythm and blues aficionados had already made waves with songs like ‘Kansas City’ and ‘Hound Dog’. When Elvis Presley wanted to record ‘Hound Dog’, he was introduced to the songwriters – Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.
Across the next decade, Leiber and Stoller became the biggest names in rock and roll. ‘Yakety Yak’, ‘On Broadway’, ‘Stand By Me’ and ‘Leader of the Pack’ established the pair as unmatched in the world of hit records, as everyone in rock, doo-wop, pop, and even soul music. With a career that has both predated and outlived the Billboard Hot 100, Leiber and Stoller have stretched themselves across the rapidly evolving world of pop music and solidified what, specifically, made a hit single.
10. Randy Newman
If you find yourself born on this side of the 21st century, then the voice of Randy Newman is already familiar to you. Writing the Toy Story hit ‘You’ve Got A Friend In Me’ may well be enough to entrench Newman in this list alone. However, his career is unequivocally deep and filled with many different songs ranging from the unanimously painful to the spectacularly joyful.
Newman will never receive the same acclaim as the likes of Bob Dylan, John Lennon or Leonard Cohen, owing only to the fact that his music is intentionally accessible. While the aforementioned artists are all fiercely defensive of their status as songwriters, guarding their music and their art with a fearsome arsenal of fiery rhetoric, Newman has actively sought out the ability to connect with his audience through the medium of television, film and any other channel he can. While such accreditation can put off musos, peek behind the curtain of some of these songs, and you’ll find pure gold. ‘A Fool In Love’ for the Meet The Parents soundtrack is one of the best songs ever written for a motion picture, and it is a testament to his genius.
9. Lou Reed
The mercurial creator and serial pop agitator, the late great Lou Reed, is a man who deserves special praise in the songwriting community. Praise not only for his unquestionable creative foresight nor his ability to make alternative pop songs that still ring out some six decades later. No, Reed deserves praise because he never questioned himself as an artist through all the muck and mire that the music industry provides.
Not only can songs as neatly brilliant as ‘Perfect Day’ and ‘Walk On The Wild Side’ be attributed to Reed, but his work with the Velvet Underground worked hard to make America as vital in the proliferation of alt-rock as Britain had been during the 1960s. With his band, he would offer up a view of a seedier side of the US — a side of subversive realism and beautiful darkness. Whether it was creating the aforementioned subverted pop ditties alongside The Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol or it was a pursuit of solo stardom with David Bowie on his seminal album Transformer or, of course, his mind-splitting record Metal Machine Music, Reed’s ability to create and craft was unlike any other.
8. Kurt Cobain
Very few will claim that Kurt Cobain was the greatest lyricist of all time, but his impact is undeniable. Throughout his career, Cobain always maintained that lyrics were almost an afterthought, favouring the sound of words rather than the meaning, which is remarkable when considering how powerful they proved to be. While the words might not always be the main focus in Nirvana songs, the emotion behind his voice could not be underestimated.
Having an amazing knack for pop hooks and dynamics, Cobain sculpted the ultimate embodiments of rage on songs like ‘Territorial Pissings’, with the rest of Generation X following behind him. That’s not to say he couldn’t get introspective either, like him advocating for women’s rights in songs like ‘Sappy’ and the brutal hit ‘Polly’. It might not make sense all the time, but when listening to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, you’re hearing the sound of unbridled frustration.
7. Brian Holland-Lamont Dozier-Eddie Holland
When Berry Gordy was building his Motown assembly line in the early 1960s, he decided that an in-house songwriting team would be needed to crank out enough material to sustain his ambitions. Pals like Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye contributed, but they had performance ambitions of their own. Enter brothers Brian and Eddie Holland, along with their collaborator Lamont Dozier, who could work behind the scenes to ensure that Motown always had high-quality songs at the ready.
The result was 14 number one singles written by the trio, including almost all of The Supremes’ chart-toppers like ‘Where Did Our Love Go’, ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’, and ‘I Hear a Symphony’. When put next to their other works like Marvin Gaye’s ‘Can I Get a Witness’, Junior Wells’ ‘(I’m a) Road Runner’, The Four Tops’ ‘I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)’, and Martha and the Vandellas’ ‘Heat Wave’, sometimes it looks as though Holland-Dozier-Holland might have written every great song of the 1960s.
6. Bruce Springsteen
When scaling to the top of the music world, it’s easy to lose track of the friends made along the way. As much as fame can go right to anyone’s head, it’s always important to remember the humanity at the centre of a good rock song. Bruce Springsteen was all about the everyman, though, and half of his material is proof of the human spirit.
Throughout every single tale, he tells of the misfits of America, Springsteen always has his heart in the right place, painting each of these crooked characters with sympathy, reverence and understanding of what it means to have your dreams slightly out of reach. Some of the characters in his songs might be from the wrong side of the tracks, but in the world of ‘The Boss’, everyone deserves a shot at redemption.
5. Robert Hunter/Jerry Garcia
It’s nearly impossible to distil the essence of America into a single artist’s songs, but Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia probably got the closest of all. Across 30 years with the Grateful Dead, Hunter and Garcia took their folkie roots and placed them inside some of the most psychedelic and hypnotising songs of the rock era. Hunter, in particular, had a fascination with America, encompassing everything from Pete Seegar to Jack Kerouac.
There’s truly a Dead song for every facet of America – ‘China Cat Sunflower’ and ‘Dark Star’ for the trippers, ‘Dire Wolf’ and ‘Cumberland Blues’ for the folk tale-tellers, ‘West LA Fadeaway’ and ‘Shakedown Street’ for the burnt-out edges of excess, and ‘Ripple’ and ‘Brokedown Palace’ for the truly sublime. To the uninitiated, it might seem like hippie-dippie nonsense. But to the dedicated and curious, it’s as American as any music has ever been.
4. Carole King
The modern concept of pop songs was shaped by what Tin Pan Alley brought to the table. Before The Beatles had even started, artists would go to the different hit factories in New York in search of the latest smash hit to sell to radio. Although Carole King cut her teeth in those songwriting factories, there was no one who could sing the songs quite like the writer.
Across albums like Tapestry, King paints vivid pictures of love, both newfound and sour, from the yearning vocals in ‘So Far Away’ to the comfort that comes from ‘You’ve Got a Friend’. Even going into her next phase as a superstar, her knack for songwriting never wavered, always sounding like she was greeting the listener like an old friend. Whereas most artists have the ‘fake it til you make it’ mentality, King was a seasoned veteran, able to carve brilliant pieces of art through three minutes of music.
3. Paul Simon
Most of the songwriters we consider to be America’s finest can find their roots firmly entwined with the folk explosion of the 1960s. A unique blend of poetry and pop music, the scene delivered several acts that we still consider true greats. Paul Simon is certainly one of them. Originally finding fame as one half of the duo known as Tom and Jerry, which would become Simon and Garfunkel, the diminutive songwriter has produced countless shining hits.
Across his time with childhood friend Art Garfunkel, Simon would create timeless classics such as ‘The Sound of Silence’ and ‘A Bridge Over Troubled Water’. Splitting with Garfunkel in 1972, Simon’s career would continue to allow his songwriting chops to come to the fore with hits such as ’50 Ways To Leave Your Lover’, ‘Graceland’ and ‘You Can Call Me Al’ all able to delight almost every audience who hears them.
2. Willie Dixon
While not quite a household name on the same level as most of the other artists on this list, Willie Dixon almost certainly has the biggest impact on popular music compared to his relatively modest level of fame. An ace session bassist and prominent vocalist in the Chicago blues scene, Dixon found his true niche providing songs for the biggest and brightest stars of the early convergence of rock and blues at Chess Records, including Chuck Berry, Howlin’ Wolf, and Muddy Waters.
The songs speak for themselves as enduring classics: ‘Little Red Rooster’, ‘I Just Want to Make Love to You’, ‘Spoonful’, and ‘I Can’t Quit You Babe’, just to name a few. When the next generation of British bluesmen, including The Rolling Stones and Cream, dipped into his songs, they made his impact even bigger. Led Zeppelin will be paying Dixon’s estate royalties until the end of time, and rightfully so – nobody laid the foundation for rock music quite like Dixon.
1. Bob Dylan
How could it be anybody else? Across seven decades of work, no one has inspired more people to begin fumbling around with words and music than good-ol’ Robert Zimmerman. Even though his reputation as a songwriter is what gets the most emphasis when talking about Dylan’s legacy – which includes a Nobel Prize in Literature – it was Dylan’s articulation of those songs with his unique voice that broke open the floodgates for generations of aspiring musicians.
The fact that Dylan could turn from folkie to rocker to born-again Christian to old-school jazz nut, on top of his hundreds of other guises and identities, was an inspiration. But the undeniable truth was that it always sounded like Bob Dylan at the core of whatever he was doing. That combination of massive scope, wild variety, unkillable creativity, and uncanny hold of the country’s vast traditions is what makes Bob Dylan the ultimate American songwriter.
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