(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Fri 28 November 2025 23:30, UK
Linda Ronstadt seemed to live out her career by the principle of always having a new, and sometimes unexpected, trick up her sleeve.
What started as an emergence of California folk rock transformed over the years to everything from Mexicana to classical; an attribute that may have seemed too peripatetic to some, but really represented the power of a woman with the ability to dip her brush into many paint pots, and turn them all unanimously into masterpieces.
It almost goes without saying that Ronstadt was, and still is, an artist with unmatched talents whose like we will probably never be lucky enough to come across at any point again. But by the same token, this glowing shield of godliness didn’t entirely make her immune to the odd flaw or weakness in her otherwise shining achievements.
Essentially, all of this is to say that she couldn’t write a song to save herself. That may seem like a pretty harsh way of putting it on the surface, but when you consider the fact of how many tunes Ronstadt must have lent her voice to over the decades, and by comparison, the number of them she penned by her own fair hand, it doesn’t make the most positive reading.
Indeed, out of a back catalogue of hundreds of songs, the reality was that Ronstadt only wrote three of them. Yes, you read that right – only a measly three. Those coveted rare tracks consisted of ‘Lo Siento Mi Vida’, ‘Try Me Again’, and ‘Winter Light’, and even at that, all of them still had co-writing credits. Apart from being the voice that spanned genres and generations, the one thing Ronstadt clearly did have an aversion to was pen and paper.
Why did Linda Ronstadt never write any of her own songs?
To some artists, it might almost seem like sacrilege not to have a full rubber stamp over your own tunes, but it was something that Ronstadt never paid much attention to. Indeed, she was more or less an open book when it came to her reasons for choosing not to write songs, as she simply stated that it was not what she was interested in. She was just a singer, without the double-barrelled addendum.
Referencing one of her rare self-penned songs, ‘Try Me Again’, she once commented: “Like I’ve said before, I don’t really consider myself a songwriter, I was really amazed I wrote that song. That’s not really something that I do. Some people sit down every day, and they write, but I don’t do that. I have a few ideas cooking, but my goal in life is not to be a songwriter.”
Instead, Ronstadt much preferred to classify herself under the self-adopted label of “song stylist”, much more aptly describing her proclivity for taking the lyrical prose she was delivered by other writers and subsequently putting her own vocal spin on it. There was nothing wrong with that, of course, but it signified an area of her artistry from which she was never willing to budge.
With only three songs fully tethered to her name, Ronstadt may take the prize for the most prolific artist in history with the fewest writing credits. It doesn’t take away from her musicianship or the impact she made, but it’s certainly a little sting for all those who graft away for years at the art of their writing and reap no reward. Ronstadt simply turned up to the studio and laid down a soaring vocal, easy as that.
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