The Greatest Prog Lyricist

Roger Waters (before the Wall)

Neil Peart

Kerry Livgren

Peter Gabriel

 

 

This is not an easy topic, because it tends to reach into favoritism and commercialism.

 

Take away some of those people and you have almost a no-list at all ... which tells you that there are not enough people listening to other things to even have any idea ... that there are other folks out there that also write songs, music and poetry.

 

Probably the best lyricist out there is Roy Harper. There is no second when it comes to the amount of poetryhe has written and sung about/with. If there is a second one out there, I would say Peter Hammill.

 

The third one, is a person that we don't like to discuss here because it isn't prog. But Bob Dylan is probably the only one that will be remembered forever for his words -- that will not be listed here!

 

In general, almost ALL rock music lyrics, progressive or otherwise, are pretentious and have very little literary value. The 20th century has been about breaking that down and I accept that and to me Roy, Peter and Bob are the TS Elliots, the veritable best poets of the century ... however, their medium in rock music is not (YET!) accepted as a proper literary and poetic medium that it should be treated with. I think this will change in the future.

 

All in all, Jon Anderson is a good lyricist, when the muse hits him, and a very bad lyricist when he is not into it and is simply doing "Yes music" ... it's just a song!  Frank Zappa is a tough addition in terms of lyrics because a lot of his lyrics were actually improvised and added on many times over the songs, and sometimes some lyrics stuck and sometimes they didn't. Frank didn't necessarily sit down and write the lyrics on top of the 10 staffs of music! The stuff that Napoleon sings, he came up with, not Frank! It just fit the feeling and the nature of the music ... and Frank was intelligent enough to allow and help the music to shape itself off the lyrics and the words, something that most "lyricists" DO NOT do! And folks like Peter Hammill and Roy Harper made their living doing just that.

 

In terms of some of the other rock lyricists, there is too much words to a song, instead of poetry or real lyrics. And while poetry sometimes repeats things to make a point, the rock'n'roll use of codas and refrains to continuously say nothing about the song or the lyrics, is, eventually quite boring and not acceptable when it comes to "progressive music". Sorry ... Rush fails!

 

As I said above, this is a very tough area. I, personally do not think that some of the names mentioned are that important in terms of "literature" ... they maybe in rock music ... but a lot of rock music is going to be wasted because the ability of anyone to discuss the work intelligently and good sense ... and simply listing "favorites" is not a good show ... at all! Bob is not one of my favorites at all, but one can not deny the poetry ... and how others have been able to express it. Peter is self explanatory. Roy is even more so!

 

The rest ... not very good at all in my book!

Just to annoy you, I will again! 

Steven Wilson is by far my favourite prog vocalist.