re: Greatest Rock Poet Lyricist?

Trent Reznor

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Sir Raymond Douglas Davies

Read the lyrics from '20th Century Man' or 'Waterloo Sunset' and many others. Brilliant.

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This, this and this. Could rock like nobody, and tell very interesting tales or make elaborate, stinging social and political commentary.

DP

I'd throw Jackson Browne in the mix. Top 10-20

David Bowie is underrated IMO, Mick Jagger will shock you if you sit down and read his catalog. Joni Mitchell, Bob Marley, Paul Simon, all brilliant, too. Some of the names given here, good rockers, but I cannot fathom being considered "greatest", though. ..also a fan of Townes Van Zandt, L. Cohen, John Prine, Tom Waits, and I fricken love Hank Sr.'s writing style.. LA Woman is still one of my favorite albums but if you take the time to actually read Morrison's song writing....jeez, was he a wasted-load-dumb-frick or what? most overrated ever... good R&R though...and Jimmy Page could pen great lyrics for his riffs but don't think about them too much, either...

but seriously, I cannot imagine anyone who has even once contemplated just 3 or 4 of Dylan's better songs could consider anyone in the same ballpark.

Dylan's use of language is so singularly unique, brazenly vivid, and incredibly complex with irony and whimsy, farce and honesty, the ascerbic and serene, raucous and subdued, grating and satisfying, and at all at the same time is so instantly accessible... seriously, who else writes ANYTHING like him? I just wish I'd "discovered" Dylan earlier.

Think about this... Desolation Row, A Hard Rains Gonna Fall, Subterranean Homesick.., The Times Are A-Changin, Masters Of War, Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues, Blowing In The Wind, I Shall Be Released, My Back Pages, Tambourine Man, Positively 4th Street, ... Dylan had written/recorded these plus more than 100 others before he was

Justin Bieber's age....

...then proceeded to write and record another 400 songs over the years. I challenge one to contemplate the lyrics of just these ten songs listed above.. then find an entire career with lyrical content equal to just this.

I go with Lennon-McCartney next for poetic creativity, then Neil Young... for R&B... Holland/Dozier/Holland, Marvin, and Curtis Mayfield... and years before he sang,

"Chocolate Salty Balls",

Isaac Hayes wrote some tight R&B songs. His "Hot Buttered Soul" and "Phoenix" albums were game changers for me back in the day. And for Curtis, "Curtis Live", recorded in NYC at the Bitter End (1972) showcases much of his pre "Superfly" material with a ridiculous, stripped down, four piece R&B guitar based group like never heard before or since...(no keyboards, no horns)... ...I can't stop... more great R&B songwriting: James Brown's Soul Classics Vol I and II are MUST HAVES if you want "poetic"!!

Lou Reed

Elvis Costello. Always evolving, imo.

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Dylan easily

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