American Pie has the most meaningful, thoughtful and brilliant lyrics ever written. No question. Tops any garbage modern day rap or pop song where they just autotune a repeated line to a computerized beat over, and over and over...
Really? The lyrics are good, yes, but as almost stream of consciousness imagery held together by the singular event of "the day the music died" I think Dylan songs like "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and "Like a Rolling Stone" are far more "thoughtful". As for "meaningful", massively subjective but many would argue a song like "Imagine" among many others might pip it.
Lots of modern rap has brilliant lyrics. Not the stuff topping the charts, but if you actually engage with the genre, you'll find some really good and clever stuff. Also, I love American Pie, and the lyrics are interesting and original, but they're far from the best.
Same here. I saw 1978 and thought it was a typo - it should have been 1968, but then I couldn't get a D out of Richard Harris's name, so I just went with whatever "D" names I could think of from '78. I liked both Harris' version and Waylon Jennings' country remake, but then I'm a Jimmy Webb fan. (I thought Webb's Galveston was brilliant for its era, even though Glen Campbell watered down the lyrics in his version of the anti-war song.)
Donna Summer is hard to find with those songs. Maybe I should have known No more tears, but I would never have missed her if you had put Love to love you baby, I feel love or Hot Stuff. I really don't see the point in putting lesser-known songs in such quizzes, those are meant to be clues, aren't they?
I'm shocked, just shocked I tell you, that Dickie Goodman didn't make this list. His "Mr. Jaws" in the mid-70s was the "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" of pop-satirization-of-summer-blockbuster-movies.