For my money, the best songwriter in my lifetime is Andy Partridge of XTC. Here are a collection of interviews about the stories behind his songs.
http://chalkhills.org/articles/XTCFans.html
Some of these interviews are collected in the book
Complicated Game (and there eventually may be a second volume).
http://jawbonepress.com/complicated-game/
Quote:
Chock full of fascinating information from the mind of one of the most brilliant songwriters of our time. No one else does what Master Partridge does. This book tells us why. ADRIAN BELEW
Andy Partridge’s body of work is the deepest, strongest, and most interesting of any songwriter of the last 40 years. He is intensely influential because he is a musician’s musician. We, the faithful, know this to be fact, and now have this set of probing interviews to dig into, to perhaps get a sense of how this brilliant madman thinks, works, and creates. On behalf of XTC fans, Partridge fans, Music fans—thank you for this book. DAVID YAZBEK
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Ex. I love how he describes writing Jason And The Argonauts - how the music actually makes you picture a ship rushing through the waves (at least that's what I hear, not just a forward momentum but a rolling momentum too):
TB: Absolutely. So was that your basis for the song?
AP: Well, I'll tell you what started it. The actual song came out of finding the main, propelling [sings ascending/descending guitar pattern], which just fell into my hands. It was almost like a twitch -- it just fell into them so easily.
I mean, it's just a one-note figure, with another note in constant harmony, and it felt so good. I thought, "Wow, that's almost like the sound of traveling across the sea." And then of course, it's, "Who traveled across the sea? Jason and the Argonauts!" And
bleagh! this whole idea came out.
TB: As you are wont to do.
AP: I've said many times that you can play a little figure or a chord, and as you're telling yourself what it sounds like, that frequently becomes the lyric. This little figure just sounded like traveling across the sea, and then for me it was a very short step to Jason and the Argonauts.
http://chalkhills.org/articles/XTCFans20070401.html