Jurica.....I think your ideas are really cool. You originated them...start a thread. I'd be happy to join and LC's lyrics can be an integral part of the process along with others...just so long as we can keep the very ostentatious LC puppylove out. I'd also like to discuss some of Lightfoot songs...another canadian songwriter I used to listen to a lot a few years ago. BTW, it seems you are dipping into Dylan's personal CD collection (Robert Johnson, Blind Willie McTell). What is your opinion of them...I've never heard them myself.
Other suggestions for threads is pick a topic or subject/object and compare how LC & other songwriters have used that in their songs. Not to say so and so is better or worse...just how they have used an object.
Also, I frequently find specific songs by someone that feel like someone else could have written and have a discussion about that. Like so and so Dylan song could have been written by LC. (e.g., Tim referred to I and I and I suggested Everything is Broken)
Paula....I was crazy about Madonna and her music at 16. I still am !!
Nevertheless, I owe no special allegiance to any single artist. My love of music is too vast and Leonard (or anybody else) is too thin. I can appreciate LC and his music when it is accepted as part of the community of music, not when he is set apart and put on some pedestal by himself. He is not that good...nobody is.
Witty_Owl, Lizzytysh, Tom.....I dislike artificial categorization myself but when you have a 150+ CD collection it becomes necessary. Having an interest in music and history, I logically progressed to musical history and have gone backwards in time since the 80s when I was listening to Springsteen, Madonna etc.
So briefly my collection consists of the following easy classifications (for me atleast).
1.Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Cisco Houston, Paul Robeson.
2.Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra Dean Martin.
3.Domingo, Pavarotti, Lanza, Gigli, Terfel, Kanawa and them opera guys
4.Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton and other country music.
5.Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Tom Russell and them Austin sounds.
6.Sondheim, Weill, Prevert, Hollaender - 20s-30s european cabaret music.
7.Brel, Aznavour, Ferrat - French stuff.
8.Nusrat Fateh, Shafqat Ali, Tagore + some indian/pakistani pop music.
9.Culture, Bob Marley, Burning Spear - reggae
10. Springsteen, Madonna, Suzanne Vega, ABBA.
So Tom, I hope you can understand why I categorize LC, Lightfoot, Dylan into one bracket 60s folk-rock, singer-songwriter.