I mean as people, not songwriters. What purpose to they serve? My friend Ken from NY was visiting. Before I moved to Maine, he and I played in a band called Dogs Gone Fishing.
So while he was up visiting we played a reunion gig at the Gorham Grind . He always played this great obscure cover tune called "Spider John" by Willis Alan Ramsey, the Texas songwriter who wrote Muskrat Love (a hit for The Captain and Tenile) believe it or not. Anyway we finished playing the song and Ken turns to me and says "Scott ______ " (I don't remember the last name). That was the name of the guy he learned that song from thirty years ago. Do you think he would have remembered that guy if it weren't for that great song. So memory is one thing songs do for us --I think you could find a lot of examples of this in the ways that aboriginal peoples retain their histories...
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