Top 6 - Pop Songwriters

 Prompted by the thought, below, that Smokey Robinson is clearly one of them - for The Tracks of My Tears, A Heart like Mine and all that first Miracles album, The Tears of a Clown.

One of the more modest things that Bob Dylan ever did was say that Smokey was the real poet. Somehow capable of sounding both joyous and forlorn at the same time, he is gracious enough in defeat when betting Berry Gordy that Marvin Gaye did I Heard It Through the Grapevine before Gladys Knight when he didn't.

It would make for an easy job here just to list all the Motown songwriters and it wouldn't be too far wrong, it just might look a bit partisan but Holland-Dozier-Holland are essential for all that they did for the Supremes, continuing beyond Motown with Band of Gold but having been, as I understand it, a production line within the Hit Factory with one doing words, one music and one arrangements, more or less. Profound purists might prefer the troubadour types who authentically sang songs they wrote themselves over their own chords on acoustic guitar or piano but it doesn't have to be like that. All one wants is a good record however it is contrived.

Before going any further, Stephin Merritt's agonizingly dark songs of romance come from a recipe of his own with a pop sensibility undermined by ironies that make them art without us concerning ourselves about sincerity.

And, thus, Burt Bacharach whose work gave Cilla and Dionne their timeless masterpieces until one finds that he wrote much of the 60's soundtrack that didn't come from the Beatles or Detroit. Anyone Who Had a Heart, Walk On By, I Say a Little Prayer and even up to On My Own by Patti Labelle with Michael MacDonald straining to keep up.

It's been all blokes so far and although it's not impossible that songwriting comes as part of the male DNA, it's equally likely that the top jobs in the Golden Age of pop music were taken up by men as some sort of droit de seigneur. One of Burt's marriages was to Carole Bayer Sager and it comes as some surprise that what could have been quite a competitive relationship lasted nine years. While not really allowed by the rules of the game to mention near misses, Joni Mitchell is under serious consideration as I write but it almost does her a disservice to call her 'pop'. A Case of You almost gets her in on its own and Dory Previn is special, not revisited enough for many years. But the answer is Carole King who, having dealt with with Neil Sedaka in Oh, Neil, and a similar nine-year stretch with a songwriting husband, went on to write her Tapestry album, Oh, No, Not My Baby, One Fine Day and, yes, sometimes I also 'stayed in bed all morning just to pass the time'.

And so, we arrive in this situation every time. Five places thrown away like confetti but to those you can't take it back from. And Odyssey If You're Looking for a Way Out is on the wireless - Stop, stop pretending, it must be whoever wrote that, especially if they wrote the other Odyssey masterpieces.

I'm not having Lennon-McCartney who don't belong on the same list of poets as those above. Not Jagger-Richards, either, who did good work but most of which was posturing. I'd love it to be George Michael, it is Gregory Isaacs if measured by how many of his records I ever bought and, depending on how much Al Green wrote of his best songs it could be him.

It's a dubious business, song writing credits. Wasn't there a story that Col. Tom Parker inserted himself as co-author of Elvis B sides, that got the same royalty as the hit A side.

No, it's not his fault that he chose such a tremendous song to do a version of that his best track wasn't one he wrote himself when he did Wild is the Wind on Station to Station.  

It's obviously David Bowie, more talented than all the Beatles put together, notwithstanding that they all outstayed their welcome but you can't take away from them what was safely on the record, as it were.