As soon as we decided to make a list of the 30 greatest living American songwriters, we could guess how readers would respond to the results: with a combination of enthusiasm and outrage, quickly letting us know which of their favorites we had unconscionably forgotten. We didn’t want all that passion to go undocumented. So we invited readers to assemble their own list in a formal poll. More than 25,000 ballots were cast, producing nearly 12,000 distinct choices. We spent weeks combing through the votes to tabulate the results. Voters wrote so many perceptive things about their favorites that some of us may continue poring over ballots for months to come. Finally, here they are: the top 100 songwriters, according to our readers. They’re annotated throughout with facts, interesting patterns we noticed in the data and testimonials for the songwriters voters think we missed. Read the full list here. Stay in touch: Like this email? Forward it to a friend and help us grow. Loved a story? Hated it? Write us a letter at magazine@nytimes.com. Did a friend forward this to you? Sign up here to get the magazine newsletter.
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