This volume identifies and interrogates the musical, linguistic, social and ideological elements that configure the singer-songwriter and its various equivalents in Europe. Particular attention is paid to the emergence of this figure in the post-war period, how and why its contours have changed over time and space subsequently, cross-cultural influences, and the transformative agency of this figure as regards party and identity politics in lyrics and music. The book's polycentric approach redresses the hitherto Anglophone bias in scholarship on the singer-songwriter, drawing on the knowledge of scholars from across Europe and from a variety of academic disciplines.