Top for me....
Lennon/McCartney
Donald Fagen/Steely Dan
Randy Newman
Joni Mitchell
Bob Dylan
Honourable mention - Elvis Costello, St. Vincent, Sarah Bareilles, Prince, Zappa, Sufjan Stevens, Bob Marley, Lou Reed, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon
And then there are the Golden Age guys who wrote the great standard lyrics - Noel Coward, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Hal David, Bertold Brecht, Yip Harburg, Ted Koehler, Ira Gershwin, Truman Capote, Jerome Kern, Stephen Sondheim... But best of all Johnny Mercer, he of the crazy metaphors -
You're just too marvelous, too marvelous for words
Like "glorious", "glamorous" and that old standby "amorous".
It's all too wonderful, I'll never find the words
That say enough, tell enough, I mean they just aren't swell enough.
You're much too much, and just too "very, very"
To ever be in Webster's Dictionary.
And so I'm borrowing a love song from the birds
To tell you that you're marvelous - too marvelous for words.
Other Mercer lyrics: Moon River, Days of Wine and Roses, Come Rain or Come Shine, One for My Baby (and One More for the Road), That Old Black Magic, Travlin' Light, I'm an Old Cowhand from the Rio Grande, Jeepers Creepers.
Here's Billie Holiday singing Travelin' Light
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