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The voters who determine the 2026 Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees have a tough choice ahead of them: narrowing a list of 13 strong candidates in the performing songwriter category down to their top three selections. (They also will be choosing three non-performing songwriters from an equally strong list of 14 contenders.)<\/p>\n
The fact that there are exactly 13 nominees in the performing songwriting category \u2013 nine individual songwriters and four songwriting teams \u2013 may be a good omen for Taylor Swift<\/a>, who has long said that 13 is her lucky number. Swift received the SHOF\u2019s Hal David Starlight Award, which goes to newish songwriters who show promise, in 2010. She would be the first person to graduate from the Starlight Award (which dates to 2004) to full membership status.<\/p>\n More from Billboard<\/strong><\/p>\n A songwriter with a notable catalog of songs qualifies for induction 20 years after the first commercial release of a song. Swift\u2019s first single, \u201cTim McGraw,\u201d was released in June 2006. The SHOF gala is typically held in June, so she just makes it.<\/p>\n Seven of this year\u2019s nominated songwriters or songwriting teams have had one or more No. 1 hits as songwriters on the Billboard Hot 100<\/a> \u2013 Randy Bachman<\/a> and Burton Cummings (The Guess Who), Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell<\/a> (America), Richard Carpenter (Carpenters), Harry Wayne Casey<\/a> (KC & the Sunshine Band), Kenny Loggins<\/a>, P!nk<\/a> and Swift. <\/p>\n Bachman co-wrote The Guess Who\u2019s 1970 No. 1 hit \u201cAmerican Woman\u201d and was the sole writer on Bachman-Turner Overdrive\u2019s 1974 No. 1 hit \u201cYou Ain\u2019t Seen Nothing Yet.\u201d Casey co-wrote five No. 1 hits for KC & the Sunshine Band from 1975-80 and co-wrote George McCrae\u2019s No. 1 1974 hit \u201cRock Your Baby.\u201d (Casey co-wrote all of these hits with Richard Finch, but only Casey is nominated for the SHOF.) Bunnell was the sole writer of America\u2019s first No. 1 hit, \u201cA Horse With No Name.\u201d Beckley was the sole writer of their second, \u201cSister Golden Hair.\u201d<\/p>\n Carpenter co-wrote Carpenters\u2019 1973 No. 1 \u201cTop of the World\u201d with 2011 SHOF inductee John Bettis. Loggins co-wrote his 1984 No. 1 \u201cFootloose\u201d with 2024 inductee Dean Pitchford. P!nk has co-written three of her four Hot 100 No. 1s. Swift has co-written all 13 of hers.<\/p>\n SHOF voters vote for their top three choices in the performing songwriter category, so we made it so you too can vote for your top three choices. So tell us: If you were a Songwriters Hall of Fame voter, which three<\/strong> candidates would you vote for?<\/p>\n Best of Billboard<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Billboard’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The voters who determine the 2026 Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees have a tough choice ahead of them: narrowing a list of 13 strong candidates in the performing songwriter category down to their top three selections. (They also will be choosing three non-performing songwriters from an equally strong list of 14 contenders.) The fact that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2114720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[29110,400795,399717,399719,400794,399718,400460,338984,23084],"class_list":["post-2114719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-billboard","tag-dewey-bunnell","tag-gerry-beckley","tag-harry-wayne-casey","tag-performing-songwriter","tag-richard-carpenter","tag-shof","tag-songwriters-hall-of-fame","tag-taylor-swift"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Which-3-Do-You-Most-Hope-Get-In-Vote.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2114719"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2114721,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114719\/revisions\/2114721"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2114720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2114719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2114719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2114719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}