10 Greatest Classic Rock Songwriters

10. Phil Lynott

Thin Lizzy were a beautiful hard rock monster in the 70's. Under the watchful eye of frontman Phil Lynott, the band pumped out blistering hard rock music and developed a unique dual-guitar sound that influenced everyone from Def Leppard to Metallica. In fact, Lizzy's sound is so good that their impeccable lyricism could easily be overlooked.

Phil Lynott's style of lyric-writing was far more intricate than his contemporaries by taking poetry and putting it to the melody. Instead of constantly writing lyrics with the right syllabic structure for the song, Lynott would simply write prose independently from the music and would write terrific songs around them. These included everything from the cinematic escape of the song "Jailbreak" to the epic battle reveries of "Emerald." Even songs where Lizzy would slow the pace gave Lynott a chance to show his sensitive side on love songs like "Sarah" and "Dancing in the Moonlight."

Unfortunately, the band's hard living on the road led to Lynott succumbing to his drug addiction in the early 80's. However, more and more young rockers are combing through Lizzy's lyrics to this day to tap into the poetic magic that Lynott possessed when composing the band's classics.