Alice Cooper talking to the Toledo Free Press about songwriting:

Toledo Free Press: You’re known for your clever lyrics. When did your love of words begin?

Alice Cooper: Probably when I first started listening to rock. I was a journalism major, so I was always very good with words. I was a good short story writer, so it was easy for me to move right into lyrics, because all you’re doing is putting a story together in three minutes. And the trick is it’s got to fit a certain meter, it’s got to rhyme. I mean, it should rhyme, and it should be clever. So I listened to two of the best songwriters who do that. Chuck Berry was an amazing lyric writer. If he couldn’t figure out a word, he would just make one up. Like he would say “Don’t give me no botheration.” There’s no word “botheration,” but what a great word! And the other one was Ray Davies of The Kinks who wrote “Lola” about a guy who picks up a cross-dresser; it was a great pop song and you really pictured what was going on. So I kind of learned how to write lyrics from that, and I got really good at it. The trick is you write the punch line first. On a song like “I’m 18,” for example, when you’re writing an angst-riddled song — I’m a boy, I’m a man, I’m sexually confused, I can fight in the war but I can’t vote — and normally you’d say “I’m 18 and I just hate it.” And this went “I’m 18 and I like it.”(Link)

Rough Trade Records releases Singer-Songwriter Vol. 1:

… the latest in our themed compilation series is all singer-songwriters. 39 tracks drawn from the last 25 years featuring classics and rarities from the likes of bright eyes, richard thompson, nick cave, pj harvey (a rare demo of ‘dress’), victoria williams, antony and the johnsons, elliott smith, king creosote, mary margaret o’hara, tom russell, the mountain goats, plush, diane cluck, lou barlow, tom waits, tracey thorn, robert wyatt, kristin hersh, cat power, mark eitzel and more.
(Article Link)
(Check prices for this CD from Amazon.com)
(Buy Direct From Rough Trade)