The best lyricist of all time, according to Gene Simmons
When people think of Gene Simmons, they think of the energy he brings to everything he does, the flamboyancy of his performances and the hard rock style with which he plays the bass. People don’t often cite the man as being one of the best lyricists on the planet, and that may be fair enough, as he isn’t in the business of writing deep and meaningful tracks. However, while a lot of his music might focus on partying and sex, the songs contained within those themes are catchy, and Simmons has been responsible for hits that are still played decades later. Subsequently, suggesting that he is anything less than an excellent songwriter would be unfair.
Everything started for Simmons, as it did for many people, with The Beatles. Their sound managed to capture the hearts of people around the world, and subsequently, a lot of people started trying to write music, tapping into the sound that The Beatles used to capture the hearts of millions. What Simmons eventually went on to make was lightyears away from the Fab Four, but when he initially put pen to paper, he intended to emulate John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
“When I first came to America I didn’t hear the Beatles. I came here in 1958, The Beatles didn’t hit until ’64. The first music I heard was black music: Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, the same things the Beatles did,” though Simmons was a fan of the early iteration of rock and roll, it wasn’t until he saw The Beatles that he recognised it as something he could be involved in. “Then when I saw The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show it all made sense, all the DNA that came before them and became a part of them. Once I saw The Beatles, within two years, I started writing my own songs.”
That being said, while the likes of Lennon and McCartney might have ignited Simmons’ love for music and made him want to try his hand at making it himself, they aren’t his favourite lyricists of all time. That’s a spot he solely reserves for Bob Dylan. This can’t be considered much of a surprise, as given the time that Simmons was living in New York, he will have seen the development of the folk scene in real time. The way that poetry was laced within such profound music was difficult not to stand and look in awe at.
“New York was important because you were surrounded by all the media and all the music,” said Simmons before talking about how much he loves the work of Bob Dylan, “It would have to be Dylan. There are people on Mount Olympus who you never thought you’d be able to stand beside, or near, much less be in the same room with and come up with something together.”
He continued, “Maybe nobody’s had a bigger impact on lyrics than Dylan with ‘The Times They Are A Changin’, it was perhaps the most widely recognised lyric of the twentieth century.”
Simmons also said that you can tell how much of an impact Dylan has had across music given the variety of people who have covered his music, “His songs have been covered by everybody from The Byrds to Jimi Hendrix to Guns N Roses. Very few artists have had that kind of impact. His lyrics are notches above.”
Dylan is indeed one of the most influential lyricists of all time. While his impact might not be audible in Kiss’s music, it will undoubtedly have inspired Gene Simmons to write music that gets the proper reaction out of Kiss. Dylan is one of those artists who has touched and inspired various musicians, whether that is obvious or not.
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