When it's just a job description it's fine. It's when it's this hallowed thing that's mentioned in hushed, revered tones as something far superior and more sensitive and goddamned special than yer run-of-the-mill songsmith that I tend to cringe. I wonder if what I recoil from is a particular form of music industry marketing and labelling associated with the whole singer-songwriter concept than anything implicit in individual performers. After all, the majority of my record collection is music composed by the people who perform it (usually in as part of a band, though, rather than on their own or with a few session musicians) but very few of them are singer songwriters. In the UK the expression is usually preceded by a word like "sensitive" or "soul searching" or suchlike, which doesn't exactly help the cause.

Oh, and me, I've heard of science and don't actually have a soul to bare. Though why me having an opinion, Jeri, is objectionable and you having opinion apparently isn't, is beyond my simple powers of understanding.