I love hearing a good song. Who doesn’t? As much as I love very sophisticated choral music, opera, symphonies, concertos, chamber music, etc, I will always enjoy a nice simple song. Musicologists distinguish between the so-called art song and the popular song. The term art song is unfortunate, because even creating or performing even the most primitive song is an art, and a small percentage of popular song reaches the level of sophistication of many art songs. And there are certain songs that are thought of as art songs that are in fact, quite simple.
Even Schubert, the greatest writer of the art song, wrote some rather simple songs. And what is wrong with that? What is wrong with a simple melody with a simple accompaniment?
In this blog, I will not consider the aria, i.e., an elaborate and long song that is part of a larger work such as an opera, oratorio, passion, or cantata. The aria is in a whole different category. Here I will only consider “regular” songs, not arias, hymns, anthems, etc. I will also leave folk songs out of this discussion because that is a huge subject all by itself.

One can analyze and scrutinize a song in detail and point out technical reasons as to why it is a good song, but ultimately it is a subjective experience. In general I prefer a song with more than three or four chords in it, and at least some chords that are not such simple triads or seventh-chords. On the other hand, there are some three-chord songs that I like better than other songs that have many chords. It is impossible to define what it is that makes a song great.
For me, whether or not a song is good is almost entirely dependant on the music, with the words taking on much less importance. Of course it’s an asset if a song has good lyrics, but I’d rather listen to a song with good musical quality and stupid words, than one with brilliant words and very little musical quality.

I have listened to CDs of songs by the troubadours of late medieval times, and by 15th century songwriters such as Dufay, but for me, the first good songwriter is John Dowland. But I have to admit, even though I appreciate his status as a great Elizabethan-age song writer, I decided long ago that there are only a few of Dowland’s songs that I like. Most of his songs seem rather uninspired to me, but two or three stand out for me as great songs. After Dowland, there are really no great songwriters until the nineteenth century.
Though J.S. Bach appreciated folk songs and popular songs, he was not a songwriter himself. Neither was Handel. As for Haydn and Mozart, as well as other composers of their time, the song for soloist with accompaniment on piano or guitar was not considered a serious art form. Mozart wrote some two-dozen songs for soloist and piano. Most of them are quite banal, but there are two of them that stand out as very good songs. The songs that Mozart composed for small ensembles of men were written entirely for private performance by him and his Freemason friends, and, in general, are of higher quality than his songs for soloist. I don’t know if Haydn wrote any songs at all, though he did compose operas.
In my opinion Beethoven is under appreciated as a songwriter. His instrumental works and his late choral music are so great that they overshadow his songs.  There are many songs by Beethoven that I find boring, but there are some very good ones too. The ones that I find good are the ones in which he was not trying to be elaborate. I like the songs of his “An die Ferne Geliebte.” Beethoven’s “An die Ferne Geliebte” (To the distant beloved) is the first important song cycle (i.e., a series of songs that tell a story) and was a big influence on Schubert. Every song in Beethoven’s “An die Ferne Geliebte” is quite simple. No attempt at all is made at complexity of melody or accompaniment.  Such deliberate simplicity is unusual for Beethoven.
Schubert’s composed around 150 part songs and around 550 songs for soloist. Most of his songs are easily transposed to different keys to suit the voice of the singer. Schubert, in my opinion, had the greatest gift for melody of any composer, and that gift was a huge asset for songwriting. One notable thing about his songs is the variety of accompaniment styles that he used.
Despite the fact that I find many of his songs boring, I would have to call Schubert the greatest songwriter who ever lived. Many of his songs are deeply moving and very beautiful. The variety of melody as well as of accompaniment is astounding.
The next songwriter to consider is Schumann. I have two of his song cycles on CD, and I find some of the songs in them to be very nice, and some very boring. He was a good songwriter but he was no Schubert.
Now we come to Brahms. More appreciated as a composer than a songwriter, Brahms wrote songs all of his life and amassed a large number of them over the years. Judging from the two-dozen or so of his songs that I’ve heard, I would say that most of his songs are boring, but there are a few very nice ones.

The French composers/songwriters Debussy, Poulanc, and Fauré are highly respected in certain circles. I don’t care for any of Debussy’s songs, but there are some by Fauré and Poulanc that I enjoy.
Stephen Foster is perhaps the greatest American-born song writer. He wrote many songs of high quality. My favorite is “Beautiful Dreamer.” His songs went out of style a long time ago but their melodious splendor is timeless.
Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, all wrote many great songs. That was a very prolific era in American song writing.
In the latter half of the twentieth century the song writing duo of Lennon and McCartney stands head and shoulders above all the rest. During the 1960s they were very prolific song writers. With so many songs written over a period of less than ten years, it is inevitable that many of them would not be so good. But they have enough truly outstanding songs to ensure them a place in songwriting history forever. They were capable of great variety, with rock & roll songs, blues songs, country western songs, jazzy sounding songs, Broadway show tune style songs, quasi-baroque styles songs, and some songs that defy classification.  Since John Lennon and Paul McCartney are my favorite song-writing duo, I will dwell on them at length here.
Many of their songs were the result of a true collaboration. One great song that was put together from two unfinished songs is “A Day in the Life.” John had a song E minor and Paul had a song in E major, but they both were stuck and couldn‘t finish their song. They each needed something to add to their song to fill their song out. They got the idea to use Paul’s song as the middle section of John’s song and thus a great Beatle song was born.
Paul’s “Here There, and Everywhere” is, in my opinion, the most beautiful love song of the twentieth century.  “I’ll Follow the sun” is a lovely little ballad. There are far too many great songs by Lennon and McCartney to list them all here, but I would like to go into a bit of detail on one very beautiful song.
Paul’s “I will” is one of the most beautiful love songs ever! I think it is underrated. It is a sweet melody in F sung over a fairly basic chord progression. It modulates smoothly to C for the middle section. The transition back to F by way of falling parallel sixths on the guitar is beautifully done. In the reprise of the verse, Paul adds some new chords. There’s even a diminished seventh, although it only lasts for one beat. At the end of the last verse, as the vocal line resolves itself back to the note F, the guitar hits a D-flat. This chord comes as a surprise. It sounds wrong and right at the same time. The chords F and D flat share one common note, F, so the D-flat chord goes with the melody, but it is the “wrong” chord. It is immediately followed by the “right” chord, F, and Paul’s voice goes an octave higher, hitting a high F as he says “I will” for the last time. Then the song ends by repeating a few measures of the middle section, but ending on an F chord. It is such a good song!
Paul’s Michelle is probably the most harmonically sophisticated Beatle song, with its diminished sevenths, and its cross-relation between F-major and A-flat. Blackbird is nice. Paul wrote it as a metaphor for the struggle of black people in America.
I’ve always liked “You’ve got to hide your love away” and Norwegian Wood.” And “In My Life” is a very nice song.  Lennon’s Norwegian wood sounds exotic, not only because of the use of a sitar, but also because of the use of the Mixolydian mode, and because of the fact that the tonic chord is only heard in second inversion throughout the entire song.
Another notable songwriting team from the sixties was the Bee Gees, and in fact they were still writing songs together well into the nineties. With a supreme gift for vocal harmony, they created many memorable and beautiful songs. Paul Simon has written some wonderful songs. Robert Zimmerman (Bob Dylan) has written many songs, and is a very popular songwriter with a sort of folksy sound to his songs. In my opinion Dylan was a much better songwriter in his early period than in later years. Though not a good singer at all, he became popular because he was able to write good songs, many of which deal with important social issues. In my judgment, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards created some very good songs in the sixties, but everything they’ve done from the early seventies onward has been rather banal.
I grew up in the sixties, so perhaps I am biased toward that decade, but I do my best to keep an open mind and will listen to anything at least once or twice.
In my opinion there has been no great songwriting since the sixties. It seems as if no one cares about melody and harmony anymore. There may be a good song coming along once in a while, but nothing like the flood of good songwriting from the 1960s exists now. Maybe someone will come along and bombard the airwaves with great new songs once again. I’m waiting.