20 Favorite Poets and Lyricists To Sample For National Poetry Month

20 Favorite Poets & Lyricists To Sample For National Poetry Month

It is April, National Poetry Month. I have honored 20 of the best poets and lyricists that I believe should be read and recognized.

These poets and lyricists were selected because of their imagery and writing styles, as well as their contributions to society through their works. For this list, I am doing things a bit differently. For the poets I included written examples of their works, but for the lyricists I embedded videos so the reader can truly sample the lyrical content as it was meant to be sampled. If you have favorites that I did not include on this list please let me know in the comments below or on Facebook.

Poets

10. Elizabeth Barrett & Robert Browning (1806-1861 and 1812-1889 respectively)

 The original Power Couple of 19^th century English poetry, The Brownings mastered not only the art of beautiful poetry but also the secret of a happy marriage: find success on your own terms. Elizabeth Barrett-Browning’s sonnet “How do I love thee? Let Me Count the Ways” is repeated so often that it almost obtains greeting card status. However the remainder of her poems from her work, Sonnets from the Portuguese feature poems that reveal a deep love that is both physically passionate and emotionally satisfying. Her epic poem Aurora Leigh is a feminist story about a woman who aspires to become a great poet and artist.

Robert Browning also had his share of well-known poems. Many of his best works such as “My Last Duchess” and “Childe Roland To the Dark Tower Came” are character-driven monologues from unreliable narrators that weave interesting and sometimes eerie tales. Together, The Brownings created a memorable impact in their public lives as poets and their private lives as a happily married couple.

Example:

Stanza from Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Aurora gazes at a portrait of her late mother and imagines her in many forms)

 And as I grew
In years, I mixed, confused, unconsciously,
Whatever I last read or heard or dreamed,
Abhorrent, admirable, beautiful,
Pathetical, or ghastly, or grotesque,
With still that face . . . which did not therefore change,
But kept the mystic level of all forms
And fears and admirations; was by turn
Ghost, fiend, and angel, fairy, witch, and sprite,–
A dauntless Muse who eyes a dreadful Fate,
A loving Psyche who loses sight of Love,
A still Medusa, with mild milky brows
All curdled and all clothed upon with snakes
Whose slime falls fast as sweat will; or, anon,
Our Lady of the Passion, stabbed with swords
Where the Babe sucked; or, Lamia in her first
Moonlighted pallor, ere she shrunk and blinked,
And, shuddering, wriggled down to the unclean

“My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,

Looking as if she were alive. I call

That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf’s hands

Worked busily a day, and there she stands.

Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said

“Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read

Strangers like you that pictured countenance,

The depth and passion of its earnest glance,

But to myself they turned (since none puts by

The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)

And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,

How such a glance came there; so, not the first

Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not

Her husband’s presence only, called that spot

Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek; perhaps

Fra Pandolf chanced to say, “Her mantle laps

Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint

Must never hope to reproduce the faint

Half-flush that dies along her throat.” Such stuff

Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough

For calling up that spot of joy. She had

A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad,

Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er

She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.

Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast,

The dropping of the daylight in the West,

The bough of cherries some officious fool

Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule

She rode with round the terrace—all and each

Would draw from her alike the approving speech,

Or blush, at least. She thanked men—good! but thanked

Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name

With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame

This sort of trifling? Even had you skill

In speech—which I have not—to make your will

Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this

Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,

Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let

Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse—

E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose

Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,

Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without

Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;

Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands

As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet

The company below, then. I repeat,

The Count your master’s known munificence

Is ample warrant that no just pretense

Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;

Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed

At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go

Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,

Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,

Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

 

9. Sappho (c. 630-570 b.c.e)

Many scholars compared Sappho to the Muses, the 9 Greek goddesses of art and culture. She inspired many young women by training female artists and poets and was very honest about her romantic relationships with men and women.

Of course Sappho’s legacy is also featured in both her name and the name of her home, the Island of Lesbos. When something is described as having lesbian connotations, it is still called Sapphic.

Only a few fragments of her lyric poems still exist but the fragments speak of romantic almost erotic longing. The speaker’s invocations sometimes blame towards Aphrodite, becomes a cry of pain for having such intense emotions that consume her.

Example: “Immortal Aphrodite” by Sappho

   Immortal Aphrodite, on your intricately brocaded throne

            child of Zeus, weaver of wiles, this I pray:

            Dear Lady, don’t crush my heart

            with pains and sorrows.

           But come here, if ever before,

            when you heard my far-off cry,

            you listened. And you came,

            leaving your father’s house,

            yoking your chariot of gold.

            Then beautiful swift sparrows led you over the black earth

            from the sky through the middle air,

            whirling their wings into a blur.

            Rapidly they came. And you, O Blessed Goddess,

            a smile on your immortal face, 

             asked what had happened this time,

            why did I call again,

            and what did I especially desire

            for myself in my frenzied heart:

            “Who this time am I to persuade

             to your love? Sappho, who is doing you wrong?

            For even if she flees, soon she shall pursue.

            And if she refuses gifts, soon she shall give them.

            If she doesn’t love you, soon she shall love

            even if she’s unwilling.”

            Come to me now once again and release me

            from grueling anxiety.

            All that my heart longs for,

            fulfill. And be yourself my ally in love’s battle.

 

8. Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

In the movie, Dead Poet’s Society the character John Keating (Robin Williams) used Walt Whitman’s philosophy of “Carpe diem” to inspire his students to live life to the fullest. He selected the perfect model for that sentiment.

Whitman broke many 19^th century conventions both in his life and works. He lived openly with men and embraced such tenets as deism and living close to nature.

His poems particularly those found in his work, Leaves of Grass were exercises in free verse and form, breaking many poetic conventions. They almost become stream-of-conscious conversations as the speakers rhapsodize about whatever is on their minds. In his poems, such as “Song of Myself”, Whitman wrote of complete freedom and a love of the world around him that is unsurpassed.

Example: Stanza from “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,

I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,

Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,

I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,

Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,

Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,

I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,

Nature without check with original energy.

 

7. Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

In her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and particularly her poetry, Maya Angelou attacked racism and sexism head on. Many of her poems such as “Phenomenal Woman” demonstrate the strength of women and African-Americans who face insurmountable odds but still retain hope.

One of her poems, “On the Pulse of the Morning” was read at Bill Clinton’s 1993 Inauguration which spoke of equality and love between races and nationalities who only long to say “Good morning” to each other.

• Example “Phenomenal Woman” by Maya Angelou

Prettywomen wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.                         

6. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

Edgar Allan Poe’s works are the perfect companions for a stormy night when the house is dimly lit and the wind is howling outside. Poe’s haunted imagery still has the power to send shivers down readers’ spines.

His poems, particularly “The Raven” and “The Haunted Palace” explore the inner psyche of madness and despair. They show the human mind as a place that the reader gets to explore but almost wish they hadn’t. In his works, Poe wrote of a despair that can never truly be lifted even long after death.

Example “The Haunted Palace” by Edgar Allan Poe

In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace —
Radiant palace — reared its head.
In the monarch Thought’s dominion —
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!

Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow,
(This — all this — was in the olden
Time long ago,)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.

Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute’s well-tuned law,
Round about a throne where, sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well-befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch’s high estate.
(Ah, let us mourn! — for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate!)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.

And travellers, now, within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh — but smile no more.

5. Langston Hughes (1902-1967)

Langston Hughes was the spokesperson of the Harlem Renaissance, a time when many African-American authors, musicians, and artists became well-known through their works. Hughes certainly made his voice heard.

His poems such as “Harlem (What Happens To A Dream Deferred?”) and “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” spoke of racial and social issues such as poverty, the historical scars of slavery, people being evicted, young mothers giving birth to unwanted children, and simmering tension that could explode in riots at any time. Hughes’ images are uncomfortably real and are still relevant.

Example “Harlem (Dream Deferred?)” by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?                         

 

4. George Gordon Byron Lord Byron (1788-1824)

 The Romantic poets wrote of some of the best nature and supernatural poems. They had so many representatives, but Lord Byron stands out not only for his works but living his life according to the Romantic philosophies.

Described as “mad, bad, and dangerous to know,” Byron had scores of lovers both male and female and often wrote passionately of them. He lived life as openly as he could and died young during the Turkish revolution because he carried a longing for freedom for all people. His poems also portrayed his theories of deep lust (“She Walks In Beauty”)

, political freedom (“The Prisoner of Chillon”) and the darkness in people who are considered social outcasts and are torn apart by society’s standards (“Manfred”).

Example “She Walks in Beauty” by Lord Byron

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes;

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o’er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express,

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

3. Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)

 Sylvia Plath took the idea of confessional poetry to new heights. She let the reader know not only what the speaker was feeling, but what Plath the writer was feeling. The poems recount her unhappy marriage to fellow poet, Ted Hughes, her troubled relationship with her father, Otto who died when she was 9 years old, and her own concerns about her mental state.

In most of her poems, Plath described a woman who saw the world as a very sad place. They are filled with disturbing images such as “Daddy” when the speaker compares her father and current lover to a Nazi and a vampire. They show darkness in the world and in the speaker’s and poet’s souls.

Example “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time—
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You—

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I’m finally through.
The black telephone’s off at the root,
The voices just can’t worm through.

If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two—
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There’s a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.

2. W.B. Yeats (1865-1939)

W.B. Yeats had a deep reverence for mythology and the supernatural. Many of his poems such as “Stolen Child” and his writing such as Celtic Twilight revealed a deep reverence for Celtic stories about fairies and legends.

Being a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a group of occultists, he also had a deep reverence for the subconscious and spirituality and how it played into his life. Like his contemporaries, such as T.S. Eliot and Wilfred Owen, Yeats saw dread in the world, with the coming of WWI and the Easter Uprising in Ireland. In his poems such as “The Second Coming,” Yeats used symbolism and allegory to show the darkness of the current world around him.

Example: “The Second Coming” by W.B. Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.     The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

 

1. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Emily Dickinson lived an isolated life in her home of Amherst, Massachusetts. Indeed during the last 20 years of her life, she hardly ever left her home, often wearing the same white dress almost like a living ghost. However, Dickinson’s poetry left a bigger impact than she would ever have known in her lifetime.

Dickinson’s over 1,700 poems are mostly brief but they retain strong emotions and imagery throughout. Her poems like “Some Keep The Sabbath Going to Church” or

“I Never Saw Another Moor” are invocations to nature’s beauty in finding complex meanings to sunsets, insects like spiders and bees, or birds’ songs. She also wrote of emotions in her poems like “This is My Letter to the World,” or “I Felt A Funeral In My Brain” that describe speakers that get their hearts broken, grieve for deceased loved ones, or feel emotionally disconnected from everyone around them.

Dickinson revealed deep connections to the Spirit and the Mind, considering her inner thoughts better company than the fickle outside world.

Example “This is My Letter to the World” by Emily Dickinson

 This is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me,--
The simple news that Nature told,
With tender majesty.
Her message is committed
To hands I cannot see;
For love of her, sweet countrymen,
Judge tenderly of me!

Honorable Mention: Allen Ginsberg (“Howl”) ,John Keats (“Eve of St. Agnes”),  Anne Sexton (“Housewife”), T. S. Eliot (“The Waste Land”), Percy Bysshe Shelley (“Ode to the West Wind”), Adrienne Rich (“Snapshots for My Daugther-in-Law”), Edna St. Vincent Millay (“First Fig”), ee cummings (“if/spring”), Dylan Thomas (“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”), Christina Rossetti (“Goblin Market”), and Robert Frost (“Stopping By The Woods On a Snowy Evening”)

Lyricists:

10. Leonard Cohen (1934-2016)

Leonard Cohen often wrote of people who were depressed and lost by the darkness throughout the world such as racism, dishonest governments, and social conformity as well as the darkness within such as addiction, infidelity, and broken relationships. His lyrics are filled with loss, despair and barely concealed rage at a world gone mad.

His songs such as “Hallelujah” and “Everybody Knows” reveal relationships that have been broken apart by dishonesty and fallen intimacy. The lyrics show very little light into the world but are always unforgettable in their sadness.

Example: “Hallelujah” by Jeff Buckley

“Everybody Knows” by Leonard Cohen

9. Tori Amos (1963- )

Tori Amos is one of the best of the ‘90s female singer/songwriters, women who wrote hauntingly descriptive lyrics detailing pain and loss. Amos is to lyrics what Sylvia Plath is to poetry, deeply confessional and deeply moving. Her lyrics describe fallen relationships and inevitable loneliness when someone feels like they have to settle.

She also recounts hurt in her songs, such as “Silent All These Years,” when the narrator

describes years of abuse. There is fragility and strength in the lyrics as the narrator is someone who has been hurt but refuses to remain silent any longer.

 Example “Silent All These Years” by Tori Amos

8. Carly Simon (1945- )

The ‘70s definitely was a great time for female singer-songwriters and Carly Simon was one of the best. Many of her lyrics recounted unhappy relationships such as “You’re So Vain” about a woman in love with a man who is more in love with himself.

 She also recounts the pain of women who are trapped in loveless relationships such as the haunting, “That’s The Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be” or “Coming Around Again” where the speaker longs for something to break from the simple tedium from her daily life. She also knew how to give women triumph in songs like “Let the River Run” which celebrates personal and professional victory. Simon gave women a voice and she did it wonderfully.

Example “That’s The Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be” by Carly Simon

7. Carole King (1942- )

Carole King’s impact is felt not only through her singing career but in writing songs for others. The trajectory of her career can be found in her early works like “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” where a woman feels complete in her relationship or “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” about a girl wondering about the morning after.

Her craft developed during the ‘60’s and ‘70s when her songs took a more personal tone such as “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” a criticism of suburbia made popular by the Monkees. Her album, Tapestry recounts lost love in such songs as “It’s Too Late,” the emotional closeness of friendship in “You’ve Got a Friend,” and in “Beautiful” when a narrator retains a positive outlook and self-image in times of trouble.

Example:  “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” by Aretha Franklin

“Beautiful” by Carole King

6. Bruce Springsteen (1949- )

Bruce Springsteen has been described as “The Voice of the Working Man” and I would have to agree. In many of his songs, he wrote lyrics about people who were stuck in dead-end jobs, dead-end towns and wondering about their place in the American Dream. His much-misunderstood “Born in the U.S.A.” is a negative look at the consequences of fighting for a country whose values the speaker questions.

Many of Springsteen’s strongest songs like “Thunder Road” reflect characters that desire and long to escape troubled situations by driving all night and finding someone with which to be intimate. Sometimes like in “Nebraska” they commit dark deeds just to be known and recognized.

Springsteen’s lyrics are tales of frustration, longing, pain, but a willingness to fight against the System and to be heard.

Example “Thunder Road” by Bruce Springsteen

M

5. Jim Morrison (1943-1971)

The lead singer of the Doors, Jim Morrison, had an interest in the deeper subconscious and inner psyche. This was a fascination that he explored in songs like “Break On Through (To The Other Side)” which discusses opening the mind to gain a deeper perspective.

He also understood and wrote about the darkness in society in lyrics such as “The End” where the narrator contemplates the end of the world. Of course “The End” gained more relevance featured in the opening of the film, Apocalypse Now as helicopters bent on destruction enter Vietnam.

Example: “Break On Through (To The Other Side)” by The Doors

4. Peter Gabriel (1950- )

While Gabriel’s lyrics with Genesis were wonderful, his lyrics as a solo artist were extremely powerful. Sometimes they were satiric such as “Big Time” in which a yuppie is looking forward to his upwardly mobile lifestyle or straight on such as in “Don’t Give Up” when the narrator is in despair about unemployment and constant moving.  

Many of the songs paint beautiful emotional images such as “Red Rain” based on a dream Gabriel had of seeing his backyard filled with red rain. (Which the song carried on more sinister connotations during the Cold War because many thought the red rain was a symbol for nuclear fallout.) Even when you don’t know what the song is getting at like the memorable “Sledgehammer” you don’t forget it. (And who can forget “Sledgehammer’s” Claymation music video?)

Example: “Red Rain” by Peter Gabriel

3. Sarah McLachlan(1968- )

Sarah McLachlan’s contribution to female musicians as well as her own singing/songwriting talent is second to none. In 1997, she founded the Lilith Fair music festival which focused on female musicians and performers such as herself, Sheryl Crow, Paula Cole, Lisa Loeb and others. She helped provide female musicians much needed recognition and an outlet for their creative talents.

McLachlan’s lyrics also reflect her tremendous talent. Her images in songs such as “Possession” and “Building a Mystery” describe doomed relationships between women and very troubled insecure men. (In fact she even admitted “Possession” was inspired by letters from stalkers who insist that they had a relationship with her, one of whom sued McLachlan for “stealing his words” in the letters and later committed suicide.)

Her images in “Angel’ and “Full of Grace” describe someone needing to find a sense of light and hope in a seemingly cold world filled with addiction and separation.

Example: “Building a Mystery” by Sarah McLachlan

2. John Lennon (1940-1980)

Let’s get this straight: All of the Beatles were great as singers and songwriters together as a group and in their solo acts. However, top honors goes to John Lennon because of his activism, his lyrics reflecting troubled times, and his honesty through his works.

In the Beatles, Lennon wrote songs that were honest and upfront like in “Revolution” when he attacks anti-war protestors for being just as violent as the people they are rebelling against. Other lyrics discuss a cosmic connection between the individual and the Universe such as “Across the Universe” in which the narrator wonders about their place in things.

As a solo artist, many of Lennon’s works reflect his desire to change society such as  “Imagine” which idealizes the perfect society in which people are equal and free to express love and peace.

Example: “Revolution” by The Beatles

“Imagine” by John Lennon

1. Bob Dylan (1941- )

In 2016, the Nobel Prize Committee awarded Bob Dylan with the Nobel Prize in Literature, a much deserved recognition. Dylan’s lyrics gave voices to the anti-war movement of the ‘60s and still are relevant today.

His lyrics contain images that are unforgettable such as in “Blowin’ in the Wind” when the narrator asks “How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?” wondering about the futility of such gestures or in “The Times They Are A-Changin’” in which the narrator pleads for the older generation to understand and learn from their children.

Other lyrics such as “All Along the Watchtower” (most famously and excellently performed by The Jimi Hendrix Experience) portray dark Biblical imagery to convey a sense of fear, confusion, and imprisonment. Bob Dylan not only spoke for his generation but for the later generations to come.

Example: “All Along the Watchtower” by The Jimi Hendrix Experience

“The Times They Are A-Changin’” By Bob Dylan

Honorable Mention: Bono (“One”), Kurt Cobain (“Smells Like Teen Spirit”), Sting (“Fields of Gold”), Melissa Etheridge (“Come To My Window”), Paul Simon (“The Sounds of Silence”), John Denver ((Country Roads) Take Me Home”), John Mellencamp (“Scarecrow”), Neil Young (“Old Man”), Eddie Vedder (“Jeremy”), Alanis Morrissette (“You Oughta Know”), and Billy Joel (“Piano Man”)