songwriter

Songwriters may write music, lyrics, or both. This topic is part of People within Music. This page currently draws on 48 supporting questions, with answers and bonus facts available below.

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songwriter trivia questions

A songwriter creates what?

Answer: Songs

Bonus fact: Songwriters may write music, lyrics, or both.

A songwriter who writes both words and music is doing what two jobs?

Answer: Lyricist and composer

Bonus fact: Songwriting can combine lyrical and musical composition.

What does a co-writing credit indicate?

Answer: More than one songwriter helped create the song

Bonus fact: Collaborative songwriting is common in popular music.

Bob Dylan is best known as a singer-songwriter in what broad tradition?

Answer: Folk and rock

Bonus fact: His lyrics transformed popular songwriting.

Which songwriter's early work did Joan Baez help bring to wider audiences?

Answer: Bob Dylan

Bonus fact: Baez and Dylan were closely linked in the early folk scene.

Prince was famous as a singer, songwriter, and what?

Answer: Multi-instrumentalist

Bonus fact: He played many instruments on his recordings.

Which songwriter-performer joined Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson in the Highwaymen?

Answer: Kris Kristofferson

Bonus fact: The four artists scored a number-one country hit with the title track of the 1985 album Highwayman.

Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot was born in which Ontario city?

Answer: Orillia

Bonus fact: The Songwriters Hall of Fame says Lightfoot rose to prominence in Canada in the early 1960s.

Who was the principal songwriter for The Kinks during the era of "Kinda Kinks"?

Answer: Ray Davies

Bonus fact: Ray Davies increasingly pushed The Kinks toward sharply observed songs about British life and character.

Which founding Byrds songwriter had left the band shortly before much of "Fifth Dimension" was completed?

Answer: Gene Clark

Bonus fact: Clark's departure helped shift more songwriting responsibility to the remaining members.

Which Byrds member emerged as a major songwriter on "Younger Than Yesterday" with songs such as "Time Between"?

Answer: Chris Hillman

Bonus fact: Hillman's country influences helped point the Byrds toward their later country-rock sound.

"Come Dancing" was inspired partly by songwriter Ray Davies's memories of what?

Answer: British dance halls and his older sister

Bonus fact: Davies's sister Rene died after a night out dancing, giving the nostalgic song a personal background.

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