Loomis,
"Up The Junction" is another personal favorite, but....
It's a great example of narrative lyric writing. (What I believe that Mark Knopfler was referring to as "Making Movies" when he so titled a Dire Straits LP.) "Junction" effectively tells a story and fleshes out characters in - as you note - 3 minutes. That's pretty rare. Even rarer, that story is IMO quite poignant.
I agree that that is a tremendous achievement. Few songwriters can pull that off consistently and Diffford and Tillbrook are in that select company IMO. The comments that follow are not intended in any way to diminish "Junction", because I fully agree that it's among the best songs of its type and is a great lyrical achievement in its own right.
What separates ""Fantastic Place" (for me) is that it bites off an even bigger task. Losing a loved one is probably the most painful experience most people ever live through. Over time, our society has developed elaborate rituals (like funerals/clergy) to help at these times. Therein, we are usually provided some standard advice that's supposed to help, along the lines of:
"We're here to celebrate a life as well as mourn a death."
Two unfortunate things about that advice, IME - it almost always rings hollow and it's even worse when the person has died young since there's less life to celebrate.
For me - "Some Fantastic Place" is actually a convincing celebration of a life lost too young. As such, it's - in my view - almost a singular achievement in pop music. Richard Thompson, Mark Knopfler, Dar Williams, Townes Van Zandt and Bob Dylan (among others) have penned narrative lyrics that I'd put alongside "Junction", but I know of no one who has written a "pop elegy" as effective as "Fantastic Place". Again, Just MHO.
Gpgr,
IMO, John and Paul were unparalleled as songwriters in certain respects, but not in every respect. They certainly provided an elegant solution to the problem of integrating their own brand of (relentlessly creative) harmony into rock n roll music (as opposed to, say, Brian Wilson whose solution was also brilliant but often messy/inelegant). As to the balance of their work, there are many other artists who I prefer.
My own view is that, while the Lennon/Macca achievement is justifiably recognized for its brilliance, it's not necessarily that important to me. I appreciate what they did, but I tend to look for other things in my favorite music. Just personal preference and different priorities.
BTW, I'm not arguing that I'm right here (re: "Up The Junction" vs "Some Fantastic Place" or re: The Beatles vs the rest of the songwriting world). I'm just explaining my own views on these two issues. In my book, this kind of stuff definitely falls under the heading of "To each his own" .
