Five Star Songwriters on Lennon

Dave Matthews On...'Imagine'

Very often, songs of protest or songs that have some sort of social message are just dated and unlistenable. They're earnest--and they're bulls--t. But this is an absolutely stellar song. It's wrenching. Even if he'd written only "Imagine," he would have been the greatest songwriter of all time. Nobody in a position of power had ever made that clear a statement. It's very hard to look at that song and not say, "Well, you know, he's right" even though he wasn't saying "I'm right." He's just asking you to think about something, which is the genius of it: imagine if everything we take for granted as unchangeable was not there, imagine what the world would be like. And he does it in such a beautiful, humble way that you have to be an insane person not to go, "Touche."

Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day On...'In My Life'

There are two songs I want to be played at my funeral: David Bowie's "Life on Mars" and "In My Life." On the bus late at night, we'd play "In My Life" 15 times in a row. It reflects on everything: sometimes it reads like a tombstone, or your last will. It's not about money. It's about your soul and what you hope to leave behind. It's such a beautiful song--even the drums are so simple--and it's one of the first times that the Beatles were really getting into something of true substance about what was going on down deep in their hearts. It was personal, but it could affect all these other people at the same time. It did me, anyway.

Sinead O'connor On...'You Can't Do That'

If you look at his childhood, he was brought up by his aunt. The mother wasn't there, then she came back, then she died horribly. This was a man who could not stand to be d---ed around by women, or abandoned. He couldn't stand untrustworthy women, and he's not ashamed to be a bit of a bastard. "I told you before, you can't do that"--it's controlling, it's bullying, it's nasty, but it's also beautiful. Where do you ever hear a man telling you, "If you f---ing leave me, I don't know what I'm going to do"? I admire the nastiness of it, and the fact that he didn't try to hide it. It's actually a very beautiful sentiment, but he chose not to say it all sugary sweet, like, "I can't live, if living is without you," and to me that makes him double sexy.