13 Performing Songwriters Are Nominated for the Songwriters Hall of Fame: Which 3 Do You Most Hope Get In? Vote!

The voters who determine the 2026 Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees have a tough choice ahead of them: narrowing a list of 13 strong candidates in the performing songwriter category down to their top three selections. (They also will be choosing three non-performing songwriters from an equally strong list of 14 contenders.)

The fact that there are exactly 13 nominees in the performing songwriting category – nine individual songwriters and four songwriting teams – may be a good omen for Taylor Swift, who has long said that 13 is her lucky number. Swift received the SHOF’s Hal David Starlight Award, which goes to newish songwriters who show promise, in 2010. She would be the first person to graduate from the Starlight Award (which dates to 2004) to full membership status.

A songwriter with a notable catalog of songs qualifies for induction 20 years after the first commercial release of a song. Swift’s first single, “Tim McGraw,” was released in June 2006. The SHOF gala is typically held in June, so she just makes it.

Seven of this year’s nominated songwriters or songwriting teams have had one or more No. 1 hits as songwriters on the Billboard Hot 100 – Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings (The Guess Who), Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell (America), Richard Carpenter (Carpenters), Harry Wayne Casey (KC & the Sunshine Band), Kenny Loggins, P!nk and Swift.  

Bachman co-wrote The Guess Who’s 1970 No. 1 hit “American Woman” and was the sole writer on Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s 1974 No. 1 hit “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet.” Casey co-wrote five No. 1 hits for KC & the Sunshine Band from 1975-80 and co-wrote George McCrae’s No. 1 1974 hit “Rock Your Baby.” (Casey co-wrote all of these hits with Richard Finch, but only Casey is nominated for the SHOF.) Bunnell was the sole writer of America’s first No. 1 hit, “A Horse With No Name.” Beckley was the sole writer of their second, “Sister Golden Hair.”

SHOF voters vote for their top three choices in the performing songwriter category, so we made it so you too can vote for your top three choices. So tell us: If you were a Songwriters Hall of Fame voter, which three candidates would you vote for?