The New York Times recently published a list of The ‘30 Greatest Living American Songwriters,’ compiled by polling more than 250 artists and experts and filtering the results through a panel of NYT critics.
Like all pop culture lists, this one generated a ton of controversy. Outrage over who was omitted, eye-rolling over who was included. Reminders that absent artists like Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, and Drake are actually Canadian.
Presented without comment (except that this is one of my favorite Motown songs) for your enjoyment.
The great thing about these Motown Weekends is that the music is so easy to find on You Tube and these are some of the best songs ever written… can’t beat that combo. The bed thing is that I don’t have a ton to say about them (cue the chorus of ‘Trust me, that’s not a bad thing!’ comments).
I didn’t grow up with these songs or with the artists, so I don’t have many associations to explore. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, my first exposure to many of these songs was The Big Chill soundtrack, but there’s only so much mileage you can get out of that.
Recently I discovered that DirecTV has signed me up for free Showtime. Apparently this is something they do as an anniversary gift to subscribers who’ve been with them for a certain number of years. If they alerted me to it, I missed the note. And I have no idea how long I’ll have it.
I discovered this because my DVR, which I’ve set to record any program that mentions “Elvis Costello,” suddenly recorded his music/talk show Spectacle, which airs on The Sundance Channel (Sundance is part of the Showtime bundle). This was great news because I’ve been dying to watch the show, in which Elvis interviews his favorite songwriters and then performs with them.
Meet Me In Montauk 