Yet with Joni Mitchell (such a special case), I think we are talking about a “popular” song, as a modern extension of what once could be called, a folk, and after time, traditional song. It seems hard to believe that after a few hundred years, Britney Spears will be considered a singer of traditional songs phflttttth!1!! Maybe to be dug up (hopefully not literally) by some future musicologist. The Lost Art Of Britney Spears and Vanilla Ice wins the 2324 Pulitzer.

Roger, I really like your summing up of song types. Yet, I am not sure there is so much of a difference between the repeating loop form you mention, and a ritornello. And the other classic song forms, such as AABA are perhaps analogous to sonata form etc. I often feel that the flowering of songwriting in the early 20th century is a distillation of the aria. Everybody loves a great aria, so lets get them more, better faster (all good stuff, no filler). Certainly the song’s “verse” which eventually fell out of general use (except when one wants to show off) often seemed like the recitative set up.

I also agree with you and Elaine, that there seems to be a simple, specificity of intent involved, that tends to be textual in an early Joni Mitchell, but can be musical (as in James Brown).

A big, public thanks for the wonderful evening, and to my fellow readers, I can only shout my admiration for someone who could cook such a delicious meal while maintaining a good bit of a vigorous conversation (okay, I was hogging the airtime, but still).

Of course the analogy can only be carried so far, as we’re dealing with a continuum of activity — there are pop instrumentals, and the song genre in art music can go in directions far beyond the song form. And what about music for social dance? Another specialty, I’d say.

So, most songwriters are also composers to varying degrees, ranging from the anonymous authors of peasant folk songs, who come up with unaccompanied melodies and pass them around orally, to people like Stephen Sondheim (and me), who carefully notate every detail of the accompaniment.

Looking at some folks who occupy the middle of that range, let’s take Elton John. Mmmm… let’s take pre-1972 Elton John. He mainly came up with chord progressions and melodies that probably varied a little from performance to performance. (The mere act of coming up with a chord progression is arguably a form of composition.) But, those early songs of his come off as compositions thanks to his collaboration with arranger Paul Buckmaster. To the extent that Elton was in the room with Paul contributing, approving, dismissing, etc., he also had a composer hat on.

Then there’s Burt Bacharach, known as a songwriter, but in my book he’s a full-fledged composer, considering that he scored elaborate arrangements for his recordings. If you listen carefully, particularly to his early Sixties stuff, there are many layers of counterpoint and large-scale thinking.

It’s also a question of what you call yourself. If you call yourself a songwriter, then you’re more likely to be open to alternate arrangements of your work. If you call yourself a composer, you might object to someone stripping out your carefully thought-through accompaniment and replacing it with a bossa nova vamp.