This morning my pal Alli Arnold sent me one of those gifted articles from The New York Times
Today’s was “The 30 Greatest American Living Songwriters”
Which is basically throwing a match into my brain… oh baby here we go. I consider myself a great music debater… so. I love a list, and of course the art of songwriting is one of my favorite subjects.
So I glanced at it quick, didn’t even really read it, just scanned through the names… in my head going yep, yep, nope, yep, nope… really fast… speeding through it… then I immediately made a fake version of the style of graphic the NYT used… with my face and name on it and sent it back to Alli and said something like “must not have made the cut :)”
But then I went back in… coffee in hand, kid already at school… and that’s always the mistake.. Don't GO BACK In!
Because now I wasn’t skimming names anymore, now I was really reading it.
And it starts…
Wait..
Where the fuck is Randy Newman?
Like that’s not even a debate just… where the fuck is he?
And then your brain starts doing that thing where it won’t stop stacking names
Where’s Jeff Tweedy?
Where’s Stephen Malkmus?
Where’s Robert Pollard?
Where’s Beck?
And these aren’t like deep cut arguments, these are catalogs like the energizer bunny… they just keep going and going… and going… and giving and giving and giving…
And then I went even further which is dangerous..
Where’s Neil Young?
Where’s Joni Mitchell?
And then you catch yourself mid mind outrage… oh yeah… Canada! Thanks Canada!
Which feels unfair but fine whatever rules are rules…
These lists are traps in the best way.
They’re not really lists they’re arguments.. They’re serious click bait. They’re a reason to text your friends and go “are you seeing this."
Because songwriting isn’t something you can actually rank… right?
It’s tied to where you were, who you were,
and what you needed at that exact second you engulfed yourself in the words and melody.
So yeah of course I disagree with parts of this NYT list…
but also I love that it exists… cause it made me make my own list…
In no order whatsoever… and yes it might be a bit biased…
Patrick Tape Fleming’s 30 Greatest American Living Songwriters (off the top of my head, probably missing some perfect ones..but I did this fast):
Holland-Dozier-Holland - Motown Records
Robert Pollard - Guided By Voices
Stephin Merritt - Magnetic Fields
Eric Michener - Fishboy
Tobias Jesso Jr.
Jeff Mangum
Ira Kaplan/Georgia Hubley/James Mcnew - Yo La Tengo
Devin Frank/Joe Terry/Don Curtis
Brian & Michael D'Addario The Lemon Twigs. .