There's good singers (by which I mean people who can put across a song well), and there are people who write good songs.

Sometimes, if they are lucky, they are the same people.

I think when people get pisssed off, and start sounding off about "another Singer/Songwriter", they're thinking about people who try to combine the two roles, and can't do it.

Most of the time I think the antagonism is towards people who are fair enough singers, but who feel obliged to sing songs they have written themselves.

And I think it's worth noting that for a lot of the people who have been picked out as good Singere/Songwriters, the songs they are best known for are songs they didn't write themselves.

I also like that term Songmaker - because that includes people who can make great songs that they can't sing as well as they need to be sung. And if you get back in the tradition, a lot of our best songs came through people whose singing was very minimal, by the time the collectors came round.

And while I'm about it, noone has mentioned the two songmakers I'd want on my desert island list - Vin Garbutt and Sydney Carter (and Sydney would fall into the list of people "who can make great songs that they can't sing as well as they need to be sung" - in spite of which I'd sooner hear him sing them than anyone else.)