Your Favorite Songs by Singer-Songwriters
 

Please post a video of your favorite song by a singer-songwriter whose music you admire or who was mentioned previously in the thread.
If you wish, you may also explain why you like a particular song.

I want to learn more about singer-songwriters and their music, but I don't know many of their names or songs, so I'm hoping you can help by sharing your knowledge.

I'll start:

Jackson Browne - "In the Shape of a Heart"

This is the only song I can remember by Jackson Browne off the top of my head. What other songs by Jackson Browne do you like (if any)?

I first heard this song when a boyfriend shared it with me on a tape he had made for me. I felt the song was sweet and sad, although rather cliche since it uses the word "heart" so much, but I didn't know what it was about until today.

I just looked up the song online and learned that "In the Shape of a Heart" may be about Jackson Browne's first wife, Phyllis Major, who killed herself: "Browne was devastated when Phyllis Major committed suicide by consuming an overdose of sleeping pills just a few months after they married, in March 1976, at the age of 30." They had a young son together. Jackson Browne - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Phyllis Major:

http://marypratt.files.wordpress.com...03/phyllis.jpg

Cornelis Vreeswijk was one of the world's most famous troubadours. He wrote in Swedish, but had an amazing way of writing lyrics...


‪Cornelis Vreeswijk - Somliga går med trasiga skor‬‏ - YouTube

Skipping forward a few decades, this is one of today's best singer/songwriters. This is song is just so beautiful, pretty near to perfect. I love her work


‪The Brothel‬‏ - YouTube

i'll just go for the obvious:-



why do i like it? it's a sprawling prog folk epic about a transvestite

i love the album it's from, lots (Astral Weeks)

Thanks for the additions, Final Track. I've never heard of Cornelis Vreeswijk or Susanne Sundfor, actually, and so I enjoyed listening to their music.

I also have never heard Van Morrison's song "Madame George" or realized he wrote a song about a transvestite. I even forgot this was the song's topic while listening, as the folksiness and violins distracted me from paying attention to the words! I'll have to listen again.

Thanks for posting. I can see that what is obvious to you isn't obvious to me. :)

This thread is working out great already! :D So far I've learned of two singer-songwriters and three songs new to me. :beer: (rootbeer)

Jackson Browne's first five albums are all great, "Jackson Browne". "For Everyman", "Late For The Sky", "The Pretender" & "Running On Empty".

These Days was written when he was only 16.

Do you mean someone who is/was a solo artist most of the time? Adult contemporary guitar-playing, piano-playing?

i love my label by nick lowe

This, mad skillz.

Thanks for the suggestions, Jedey. I definitely will want to listen to more of Jackson Browne's songs.

Hmm. Good question.

By singer-songwriters, I meant musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies, often providing the sole accompaniment to an entire composition or song, typically using a guitar or piano. (Definition taken from wikipedia.)

Yet I also think of singer-songwriters as those who create all the musical scores for bandmates, and then perform with them, playing their own instrument and singing the main vocal solo.

So, the definition I'm using for singer-songwriter is a musician who composes the lyrics and all (or most) of the music being played for a song, plus sings the song...but bandmates may play instruments to accompany him or her and may sing backup vocals.

I'd never heard this song before...but I realized I do know of Nick Lowe, since I know and like this song co-written by Lowe and his former bandmate Ian Gomm:

Nick Lowe - "Cruel to be Kind"



Kevin Coyne has a unique sound. I'd never heard of him before. Thanks for posting this, Stu.

another obvious one:-



suicided pretty young