If you don't write at half the songs on one of your album and have nobody else credited to all your songs, then you're not a singer songwriter to me.
Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, Carole King, Laura Nyro, Chris Rea, Jimmy Buffett, Paul Williams, Randy Newman, Jim Croce, Prince, etc. they're all singer songwriters. They wrote at least half the songs on some of their albums without outside help (some writing almost exclusively without help). They count as singer-songwriters to me.
Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Harry Styles, Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes, Adele, etc. None of them are really singer-songwriters to me! Because they have like 15 other people credited to half their songs! And there's nothing wrong with that. We can't all be songwriters. But when you have credits on all your songs and never have a solo song you wrote all yourself...how do you count as a writer? I don't think you do. You count as a singer. You're like Sinatra, Elvis and more! You're proud singers who have writers doing all the writing for you. And that's fine. But I wish we'd go back to just having this transparency.
Because me? I'm not a writer. I don't want to be credited as one. I've got tons of story ideas, story ideas I could easily share with other people and workshop into books. But that doesn't make me a writer. It makes me an idea guy! And I bet that's what half these modern singers are. They come in with ideas, and they have their writing team fix it up. But I wish that kind of thing was more openly said. It'd make me feel accepted.
Because I have ideas, damn it! I've got tons of ideas! But I can't do the writing beyond plotting things out. I can't do dialogue or descriptive language or anything! I'd gladly let other people write for me and take the credit for the writing. All I want is credit for my ideas and for helping with brainstorming. That's all I want. And I wish that wasn't seem as some kind of sin.
