Words Are Enough: Brief Profiles of Incomparable Lyricists

The July 2006 issue of Harper's reported that scientists discovered the ability of male putty-nosed monkeys in Nigeria to speak the sentence "pyow hack hack pyow hack hack," which means "it's time to move on." This exchange is no small feat — one monkey mutters something, another monkey moves. After rounding up our favorite songs from last year and exhausting all synonyms to describe the sounds of those songs, we've taken on the task of focusing on the poets of pop and other genres, the lyricists who pen the lines that move us.

Some lyricists write only one great song (or only one great line), some build genre-bending multi-year careers, some go unrecognized until well after their careers are over. All of the lyricists who will be featured here over the next few weeks have made lasting impressions on the authors who've chosen them as subjects. They're genius to us, which means this list is by no means exhaustive or complete — it's a mere fraction of the English-speaking world's musical output. But when the record stops or the mp3 player needs to be charged again, their words are the ones we remember.

The lyricists (in no particular order):