Songwriting is an art AFAIC. It melds poetry and music and can take us to places we might not travel on our own. I tend to like songs where the lyrics are like paintings where different people see different things when the view the painting. In other words, lyrics that allow for more than one interpretation or tell a story eloquently.

There are several songwriters that never get enough credit for their art and I want to bring attention to some you may never have heard of or didn’t realize who they were.

For instance John Cale. He was a founding member of the Velvet Underground whose most famous song was ‘Heroin’. He’s collaborated with many other singers and is an iconic figure in rock and roll:

Another songwriter few know is John Prine although he has influenced many other musicians:


Seems strange but so many of these songwriters have the first name of John; don’t know why that is but here’s another songwriter few know of, John D. Loudermilk:

This songwriter was a member of the band, The Band and I love this song as it not only speaks to me of some of my life experience but is one of those songs whose lyrics can be interpreted differently. And he’s not a ‘John’(no pun intended), but Robbie Robertson:

And another by Robbie:

And this songwriter needs no introduction; I include this song because I think it still is as applicable as when I first heard it walking the streets of NYC after going there when I got out of the service, not knowing anyone, and not having any ‘home’ except my own body, which is a lot of peoples situation nowadays: