I've never really been interested in songwriting (specifically lyrics) but I have always liked the music. About a week or two ago I found out a bunch of songs I really liked were written by Cole Porter. So I really started to get into the best songwriters, and how it works. So who are your favorites?

Mine are

Cole Porter (Night and Day, I've Got You Under My Skin, Anything Goes, You're The Top, Don't Fence Me In, Begin The Beguine)

Frank Loesser ( Slow Boat To China, I Got Spurs, Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition, Luck Be A Lady)

Rodgers And Hart (Blue Moon, The Lady Is A Tramp, Falling In Love With Love, My Funny Valentine)

Jerry Leiber and Mike Stroller (Jailhouse Rock, Hound Dog, Stand By Me, Love Potion No 9., Kansas City)

Lennon/McCartney ( Come on you guys know what they wrote)

and much much more...

http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/death/human.html

/Thread.

I think http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2LRROpph0 is the best.

Because Saturday is...like...After Friday.

Edit: And cereal is good.

RA Scion (Ryan Abeo) of Common Market.

This, a quadrillion times this!

Chuck Schuldiner was best, but for the sake of mainstreaming...

Bob Dylan and Jim Steinman

<<<-------- This guy. A shame that he quit writing/making music so early in such a promising career. Too many drugs, too much fame too soon, along with mental instability ended what could've been a great career.

EDIT: I'm also a big fan of Wayne Coyne's writing. FYI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfpyoGFJNNE&feature=related is him with The Flaming Lips.

Also a big fan of Les Claypool. Always has some interesting songs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quorthon.

It is really hard to tell who actually writes the songs. I always thought the bands wrote the lyrics a few years back, but then I found out that I was TOTALLY wrong. haha I really haven't taken time to find out who writes the lyrics but I am thinking I should start. I have a lot of songs I like that I actually only like the lyrics to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Songs_written_by_Jagger/Richards

edit:Why don't I have stars anymore? Did Ratwar take them?

Thome Yorke
Peter Gabriel
Phil Collins
Quorthon
Varg Vikernes.

Ben Harper, Trent Reznor, Kurt Cobain, and Weird Al Yankovic.

Matthew Good.

Nice!

I listen to way to much music to have a favourite anything really, but for the sake of this thread, my favourite is Tom Waits. Original, complex, weird, weird, weird. And Rain Dogs is not his best album, despite what everybody tells you.

Peter Steele (RIP)

Nick Culmer (aka Animal)

Adam Young. You know, the Owl City guy.

This.

I realised over the years that the songs that stick with me all my life are those that actually say something clever, or in a clever way... I don't like mainstream music because of its shallow lyrics. I love poetry in music because it takes time to fully grasp. So here're some from the top of my head: Tori Amos, Leonard Cohen, Bertrand Cantat (Noir désir), Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam)...

I'm not going to try and think of those too obscure:

The obvious greats are Lennon/McCartney and Dylan.

I also really like Leon Russell's songwriting and Carol King wrote some very memorable tunes.
I'll probably think of more but those are off the top of my head.

My personal favorite songwriter would probably be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Cantrell.

And the guys from Radiohead, of course.

Bob Dylan (solo)
Paul Simon (Simon & Garfunkel, solo)
Harry Nilsson (solo)
John Grant (The Czars, solo)
Pete Townshend (The Who, solo)
George Harrison (The Beatles, solo)
John Lennon (The Beatles, solo)
Paul McCartney (The Beatles, solo)
Sting (The Police, solo)
Neil Young (Buffalo Springfield, CSNY, solo)
Tim Buckley (solo)
Andrew Bird (solo)

Serj Tankian.

Ashford & Simpson were a great writing team. They wrote a lot of songs that helped define Motown. Included in their catalog are such hits as "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing".

My daughter

Sure she's only six, and sings off-key, can barely keep a beat, and lisps....but it's so pure and moving to hear!

And something else to consider, who writes "traditional" songs?

Jeff Buckley