Für die “Daily Mail” wählte Tim Rice (”Evita”, “Aida”, “Jesus Christ Superstar”, “The Likes of us”, …) seine Top 10 der besten Liedtexter aller Zeiten. Das Ergebnis:

01. Mick Jagger
02. Don Black
03. Cole Porter
04. Jerry Leiber
05. Alan Jay Lerner
06. Bob Dylan
07. Herbert Kretzmer
08. Johnny Mercer
09. Michael Flanders
10. Sammy Cahn

Die ausführliche Begründung zu Mick Jaggers Top-Platzierung:

Jagger’s underrated as a lyricist because he’s such a brilliant performer. The Rolling Stones, probably because they came from the London area, were much more sophisticated than all the Northern groups in their lyrics. Of course, the others soon caught up. Mick was writing stuff like ‘Play With Fire,’ about an heiress from St John’s Wood, and ‘Mother’s Little Helper,’ all about women taking pills, in his early twenties. His songs were brutally realistic: ‘Don’t want you out in my world/Just you be my backstreet girl.’ More recently he’s written a lot of stuff that could almost be described as sentimental, but which still has a cutting edge.

Link
- examiner.com: Mick Jagger ranked No. 1 on Tim Rice’s list of best lyricists of all time