Best lyricist?

Apocrypha · February 2007

Eddie is really up there yeah, but

Shannon Hoon
Michael Stipe
David Gilmour / Syd Barrett / Roger Waters

DANNY CAVANAGH- inquire to who he is

these are all pretty close if not level

macgyver06 · February 2007

Ed, Brandon Boyd, Bono/Edge, Ben GIbbard..so many more of course

oh CORNELL...hes probaly better than all of them.

prodacake · February 2007

ed is the best as well as

dylan
e (from the eels)
adam durizt

Lizard · February 2007

Besides Ed, I like Neil Peart :cool:

No his mind is not for rent
To any god or government
Always hopeful, yet discontent
But He knows changes aren't permanent
But change is.

Pearl Jam and toast · February 2007

macgyver06 wrote:

Ed, Brandon Boyd, Bono/Edge, Ben GIbbard..so many more of course

oh CORNELL...hes probaly better than all of them.

Boyd is just getting better and better isn't he?

Scubascott · February 2007

Jamal wrote:

Hendrix's lyrics aren't too shabby either guys...

come on, man, what's more beautiful than his "castles made of sand" ...

Yeah. His lyrics kinda got lost behind the music though. No lyrics could ever stand up beside music like that. I know I don't hear his lyrics much when I listen to him. I just get swept away by the guitar.

From a somewhat different genre, Kelly Joe Phelps writes some amazing stuff. The imagery is fantastic:

"Makes as much sense as a frog on a chain,
A leper knocking trees down with his fists. . . "

Pearl Jam and toast · February 2007

Hendrix's words are actually very beautiful - shame it gets lost in the guitar playing.

May this Be Love?
Little Wing

So so many others..

I have a feeling I've already mentioned it, but Nick Cave is a fucking genious.

Ahnimus · February 2007

Wheelie Cyberman a.k.a AHP

Well all I got is my tongue, and esophagus and two lungs.
Skeletal system plus muscle tissue and I’m done.

I’m through. I’m finished feedin’ frivolous thoughts
To my overtaxed central nervous system stretched taught.
Tighter than a tiger’s tooth tucked into a pale face
Hunter from a foreign land strapped with just case after case
Of ammunnition and litigational research.
Search again, but friend I just can’t be hurt.

You can wreck my spirit and kill my soul,
But then I’ll check my spirit and spill my soul.
And when I pick it up you’d better go go go.
Cuz you never know when you’re gonna come in contact
With a rapper, who can’t afford to keep the crapper

Stocked with white paper.
And I’m not talkin’ about that yellow pepper, red pepper, green pepper.
It’s all the same pepper people put your fuckin’ brain in the midst.
Just askin’ for about five minutes
To hit you with that beat box shit.
Cuz I’m only flesh and blood and bones and balls
And skin and hair and white cell waterfalls.
Yeah this invader’s a nuisance.
Dermato Fibro Sarcoma Protruberance.

Man fuck it. I’m payin’ this dude to cut it.
And I hope he cuts deep cuz I got fat scars to reach.
Just a needle in the back then it’s back to business.
Nine to five serve as sacrifice witness this.

Witness that. An MC who’s not afraid to spit fact.
Witness this.
Witness that. An MC who lays it down man just like that.

Well I’ve been waiting a long time just to get this off my mind.
Rhyme stuck in my throat like deep throat in 7-9.
Find numerous ways to intertwine,
And bind my body with the best lines cut from the script of Good Times.
Take it as a sign like The Artist, times change,
Now the softest MC’s hardest. Oh me?
Da AHP be down regardless.
Flower-filled fields fuel flows that be flawless.
Say that, bitch, after your blow then you’ll switch
Professions, be in your confession with your priest like
Shit, there’s no way I can compete with this,
Or even see this, try to be this.
Well stop tryin’.

Twenty Hail Maries and a splash of holy water
Won’t save you from the Eastlake stalkin’ fire stater.
I know it’s hard to admit the way I flow just bothers ya.
It lodges in ya, try to grab it but it dodges ya.
You rappers fill your flows with hodge podge, then spice it up with sewage.
Rhymes so old, you need embalming fluids.

Who is, the dude who do this?
The dude who deliver dialed-in diatribes,
Duckin’ mile-hile piles of MCs committing suicides.
A bunch of illiterate, illegitimate, significantly inferiority-filled fools
Who just fail to witnnes this.

Witness that. An MC who’s not afraid to spit fact.
Witness this.
Witness that. An MC who lays it down man just like that.
http://www.optimusrhyme.com/musicplayer/01_Optimus_Rhyme_Dermato_Fibro_Sarcoma_Protuberance.mp3

Brainofdz · February 2007

I've thought alot about this and I think Eddie is the best. His lyrics are consistently amazing. It makes you wonder what he hasn't revealed to the world.

People mentioned alot of other greats that I agree with, especially Dylan, Young, Reed, and Van Morrison.
Others I did'nt notice, but love were Doug Marstch of Built to Spill, Robbie Robertson/ Levon Helm of The Band, and Morrisey of The Smiths/solo

mpgervace · February 2007

check out what I did with Release and still pics

http://youtube.com/watch?v=oVERzLsej9Q

you tell me that isnt how the song is meant to be viewed

dcfaithful · March 2007

okay, eddie is amazing. he has a lot of talent and keen sense of style to the way he writes and expresses himself. but, if you have never heard of a man named jeff buckley i highly recommend you look into his stuff. his album "grace" has to be one of the bes records ever conceived and recorded in the past 50 years. His voice is unreal, and his songs are so original. He died of a drowning accident in 1997 and the world of music really lost so much of it's potential, jeff deserved to be around to make a lot more music to charm us with, but unfortunately we will never know what else he could have produced.

we miss you jeff!!!