Great Songwriters

Every song starts as words on a page or notes worked out alone, long before anyone else hears it. This is a growing, era-by-era collection of profiles on the people who wrote them — from the Tin Pan Alley tunesmiths who built the Great American Songbook, through the Brill Building and Motown's hit-making machines, to the singer-songwriters, hip-hop lyricists and pop producers writing the songs you know today.

Browse by decade below, or filter by how someone writes — narrative, confessional, minimalist and more — using the lyric classification system in the filters panel. Profiles marked “Coming soon” are on the list but not yet researched and written.