Anyone still do insightful or intelligent lyrics?

Marco,
You catch my mind with Byrne, Eno. Somehow whenever one speaks of Laurie Anderson, William Burroughs one's always thinking of Byrne, Eno, Fripp, Manzanera...
It seems that this group dictated one of the best and most "clever" janre(s) throughout the whole "song" history.

Although C&W is not my first choice, I totally enjoy Nanci
Griffith, her lyrics, voice and sound! "Other Voices/Other Rooms" got a lot of attention some years back.

Definitely Dylan, as someone else mentioned. "Love and Theft" is, like most of Dylan's songs, full of intelligent, challenging, and imaginative lyrics.

The only other person, IMHO, who writes intelligently (and emotionally) is the much unheraled Tom Ovans.

I'll second Regiolanthe's :

>> " XTC continue to be some of the wittiest lyricists around (okay - so they've been around for close to 30 years, but they're still going)" <<

For starters, grab XTC's "Skylarking" - you will not be disappointed.

CD

To CDelplato RE XTC,

If you enjoy XTC (and looking at your threads, I can see that they are one of your favorites), I highly recommend that you pick up Martin Newell's "Greatest Living Englishman" (unless you already have it). He's a bit of an eccentric (also in a group called "The Cleaners from Venus"), who has produced quite a bit of low-fi (recorded in the basement type) CDs over the years. I - admittedly - only have "GEL", so I can't vouch for the rest of his stuff - but I'm sure it's smashing.

GEL was actually produced by Andy Partridge (and he does a lot of back-up drumming/guitars as well). It is definitely in the same mold (British pastoral pop, with social commentary thrown in for good measure), with great tunes.

See this all music write-up.