The 2025 Saving Country Music Songwriter of the Year

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To see all the 2025 end-of-year winners/recommendations, CLICK HERE.

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“Songwriter.”

Many people can claim the skill, whether it’s on an amateur or professional level. Few reach the point where their name becomes synonymous with the term, and they’re recognized universally as a titan of the discipline. Some of the greatest to ever ply the craft have passed on to take their place in the songwriting pantheon in the sky. Townes Van Zandt. Guy Clark. John Prine. Todd Snider, rest in peace. Hank Williams. Cindy Walker.

But who are some of the all-time songwriters who reside in the very highest reaches of the art form who happen to still walking among us, unafraid to take language, melody, and rhyme, and attempt to unlock forbidden passages of the brain, stimulate new synapses or rewire previous pathways, or completely reshape our perspective on the world?

Jason Isbell is not a bad name to throw out there, despite his relative young age. So is Lucinda Williams. Another name that immediately comes to mind is James McMurtry.

Sometimes these silly little end-of-year accolades go to mark the achievements of someone in that specific year. Sometimes it’s the cumulative efforts over many years or even decades that help weigh into the decision. In this instance, it’s both. McMurtry’s 2025 album The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy made it near the top of many end-of-year lists in country and roots music, as did songs from the album like “South Texas Lawman” and “Sons of the Second Sons.”


A James McMurtry song almost always starts with character and setting, just like the works of his pops, legendary Texas novelist Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove). It’s not just the way the younger McMurtry can awaken character and setting in the mind’s eye, and in a much greater efficiency than some long-winded novel. It’s the clever little references he drops in each song, like trying to rip the door handle off your vehicle whenever you’ve locked the keys inside—something we’ve all experienced.

It’s through these lyrical mechanisms that McMurtry explores the complexities of human life, and the dilemmas life often creates for itself. Unafraid to get political, but uninterested in doing so in a simple way that misunderstands the nuance of an issue, McMurtry makes you think, even if you might not entirely agree.

These days, it’s not uncommon to see it take seven to ten songwriters to compose a single track. It’s also common for those seven to ten people to not accomplish what a songwriter like James McMurtry can accomplish on his own, and in one singular turn of phrase.

McMurtry performing at Mile 0 Fest, Key West


Who are some other songwriters who could have been selected in 2025 for this distinction? Some will cite Jason Isbell’s work with his acoustic album Foxes in the Snow, or Hayes Carll for his new album We’re Only Human. Some may mention Evan Felker of the Turnpike Troubadours, but he’s already hogged enough of the end-of-year attention. Another present-day songwriter who never seems to receive enough attention is Portland’s Anna Tivel. Check out the title track to her 2025 album Animal Poem.

But at 63, and still releasing songs and albums that present a master class in songwriting while setting the pace for the rest of the field, James McMurtry earns the distinction as Saving Country Music’s 2025 Songwriter of the Year. It’s a simple penance—some words populated on a web page via 1’s and 0’s in hopes conferring some appreciation for his contributions in this calendar year and many others, while being mindful that the calendars don’t stretch out indefinitely, so it’s never too early to deliver the plaudits when they can be appreciate in-person.

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© 2025 Saving Country Music

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