{"id":2392801,"date":"2026-04-28T11:56:34","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T11:56:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2392801"},"modified":"2026-04-28T11:56:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T11:56:34","slug":"the-30-greatest-living-american-songwriters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/the-30-greatest-living-american-songwriters\/","title":{"rendered":"The 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><!---->It\u2019s true that in 30 years, Fiona Apple has released only 56 original songs, on five albums, but she packs in more interpersonal danger, impassioned candor and radical tenderness than artists with triple her catalog. Whatever\u2019s lacking in quantity is exceeded in payload. \u201cYou fondle my trigger,\u201d she sings on \u201cLimp,\u201d \u201cthen you blame my gun.\u201d<!----><!--[-->\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<button class=\"readmore-button svelte-u58pj4\">Read More<\/button><!--]--><\/p>\n<div><!--[--><!--[--><\/p>\n<p class=\"g-text svelte-ov6umw\"><!---->So many musicians have trod the roads of love that we\u2019re probably desensitized to the experience of the journey. Or: Not enough songwriters have the facility, dexterity, observational sagacity \u2014 no, no, <em>the courage \u2014 <\/em>to ensure that \u201cin love\u201d <em>means<\/em> something. Apple\u2019s songs invite us back to the euphoria of attraction and the nausea of repulsion. The heart in her music seems like a place one resides. She\u2019s on one side; he \u2014 whoever he is \u2014 occupies the other. Is there a wall? Does the wall have a door? Who\u2019ll unlock it? Who\u2019ll smash it down?<!----><\/p>\n<p><!--]--><!--[--><\/p>\n<p class=\"g-text svelte-ov6umw\"><!---->What she has been offering these 30 years are commanding confessions, admissions, pledges to grow and change. (\u201cHere it comes: a better version of me\u201d is how she put it.) Apple\u2019s always emerging \u2014 from a depressive fog, from some volcanic fugue, from recalcitrance, from fear, from disappointment, from being <em>too<\/em> inside herself.<!----><\/p>\n<p><!--]--><!--[--><\/p>\n<p class=\"g-text svelte-ov6umw\"><!---->During the first spring of the pandemic, she once again emerged, this time from an eight-year absence, with \u201cFetch the Bolt Cutters,\u201d which is also the name of the album\u2019s third song, an epiphany about shedding dead weight in middle age. This isn\u2019t a scream from some hound of love (though dogs do bark on the recording). The song sounded new for her \u2014 tender, budding. She steadies herself to urge the titular command. And what emerges is a crated cat making its tentative yet resolved exit, and \u201cwhatever happens, whatever happens.\u201d<!----><\/p>\n<p><!--]--><!--[--><\/p>\n<p class=\"g-text svelte-ov6umw\"><!---->Apple was a teenager when she made her debut in 1996. She spoke her mind in a way that tends to turn women\u2019s new fame into notoriety. Three years later, she returned with songs that drew on a mighty musical intelligence and writerly imagination to make something visceral of her bruised pride and reputation. Apple works at this vertiginous juncture where Emily Dickinson goes rumbling into Etta James and, lately, Beyonc\u00e9; where Nico solves puzzles with Randy Newman, Kurt Weill, Nina Simone and the Beatles.<!----><\/p>\n<p><!--]--><!--[--><\/p>\n<p class=\"g-text svelte-ov6umw\"><!---->She subsequently pushed her music into new realms full of surprising incongruities: hip-hop clacks (\u201cFast as You Can,\u201d \u201cTymps (The Sick in the Head Song)\u201d), rain-dance heaves (\u201cEvery Single Night,\u201d \u201cHeavy Balloon\u201d), a gnat-buzz guitar chord (\u201cThe Way Things Are\u201d), \u201970s suspense cinema (\u201cValentine\u201d), a bird giving everything it\u2019s got to flight (\u201cDaredevil\u201d), plus all those music box chimes. And the older she gets, the bigger, braver and more wounded her singing has become.<!----><\/p>\n<p><!--]--><!--[--><\/p>\n<p class=\"g-text svelte-ov6umw\"><!---->What makes Apple a tremendous songwriter is her tenacity. The songs are <em>about<\/em> guts. Spilling them, trusting them, checking them. These are songs of utter persistence, of utter utterness. For all else Apple loses (her temper, her stability, her way), she won\u2019t let go of her pen or piano, of the outrageously free, devastatingly beautiful noise she can make of all that loss. <em>\u2014 Wesley Morris<\/em><!----><\/p>\n<p><!--]--><!--]--><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.nytimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s true that in 30 years, Fiona Apple has released only 56 original songs, on five albums, but she packs in more interpersonal danger, impassioned candor and radical tenderness than artists with triple her catalog. Whatever\u2019s lacking in quantity is exceeded in payload. \u201cYou fondle my trigger,\u201d she sings on \u201cLimp,\u201d \u201cthen you blame my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2392802,"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":[25179],"tags":[466844,305418,364605,22846,415902,463174,388160,365064,21800,356576,365057,412237,29634,29633,352925],"class_list":["post-2392801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-americansongwriters2026","tag-bob","tag-carey","tag-country-music","tag-dylan","tag-lionel","tag-lucinda","tag-mariah","tag-music","tag-pop-and-rock-music","tag-rhythm-and-blues-music","tag-richie","tag-swift","tag-taylor","tag-williams"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/The-30-Greatest-Living-American-Songwriters.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2392801","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=2392801"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2392801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2392803,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2392801\/revisions\/2392803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2392802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2392801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2392801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2392801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}