Cally-o,
Magic lyrics is rite! I always play girl from the north country as a warm up! The guy just was on top to the pyramid for a solid seven years... it's almost more than poetry or music and edges into prophecy and vatic utterance. I bought chronicles just to read his account of those first seven, but he refused to write about it and only wrote once sentence concerning it. Paraphrased here:
One has to command angels to write those kind of songs...
Okay Ezekiel, I mean, Bob.
As for the discussion of musicianship and songwriting my feeling is that all those named here, the monsters of folk from that period, are all master songsmiths. That doesn't mean they are great, or even good musicians. Technical ability and creative ability overlap but remain two very distinct things. For my money, Waits's pen is better than all the rest. Joni's guitaring is unmatched. Cohen's control, and voice. To me John Lennon doesn't belong anywhere near this conversation. He is a great songwriter, but clearly his lyrics can't hang with the others mentioned here. Also, we are only talking about one generation loosely. So many stellar artists have come since them.
Yoni Wolf
David Berman
Conor Oberst
Joe Pug
Ani Difranco
And for both songcraft and musicianship
Kelly Joe Phelps is the best out - plus he has no social media, no promotion, no nothing. It's truly my belief that he is hundreds of years old, and simply hangs around here by choice.
J