MUCH has been written about Wilko Johnson’s contribution as a stage performer and musician, from the creation of Dr Feelgood to his Solid Senders, to being one of the Blockheads to the Wilko Johnson Band.

But these achievements should not overshadow another important component to Wilko’s life, that of a lyricist.

Wilko’s love of words came first from  studying Macbeth and Henry V at O-level and taking A-levels in English literature, studying Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale and the poetry of Milton.

As Wilko said: “So I played my Telecaster, read my Milton and scribbled in my notebook.”

By the time he was offered a place at Queen Mary College in London to take economics, he realised he had chosen the wrong subject — but “I was a communist, so I used to like doing that, winding people up.”

When he went to the University of Newcastle to study English he discovered medieval literature, Chaucer, Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic sagas. At uni he edited a poetry magazine and contributed three or four poems per edition.

When you look at Wilko’s handwritten lyrics to She Does it Right, Roxette, All Through the City and Another Man, there are very few alterations. The ideas, the rhythm and pace of the poetry he loved are there in his words.

By the time it came to the album Sneaking Suspicion and the song Paradise, the lyrics became autobiographical. Wilko always denied that it was this song that made the band split up but, looking at the lyrics, it is clear that the ballad Wilko had created was going in a different direction.

As Wilko once said: “It was perfect. We just blew it right at the wrong time.”

Wilko knew what he didn’t want to do: prog rock or  concept albums, all the rage in the mid 1970s, when Dr Feelgood emerged; one of my fondest stories is of Wilko and a group of friends sitting in the Monaco pub on Canvey in 1975 having a good laugh at Bohemian Rhapsody, which was on the radio.

Wilko has left a legacy of brilliance in music. Now, when will someone write about this brilliance?