Songs have three elements music, rhythm and lyrics if the rhythm is great and the music is good and the lyrics are so-so then you have a good song and a few people will like it. If you have Great rhythm , great music and the lyrics are just ok lots of people will like it. If you have Great rhythm, music and lyrics you have a million seller and everybody will like it. This is my opinion and not that of a student of Julliard. Now I know that is a little over simplified maybe even naive but then this is my blog and you don’t have to agree. Some of the music that is being pushed today has at the most two of those elements but very few have all three. Now rap for some people is all they seem to like and it has nothing new to it, it’s just a lot more in your face so to speak. Some folks love jazz and there are many facets of that genre from way out in the left field to a tune you can hum to. Well you get the picture. For me ( and I’ll admit I am dated ) I love a song that has a good rhythm, great (or at least good music) a story line you can follow with a little surprise at the end. Ode to Billy Joe comes to mind or He Stopped Loving Her Today, or just a good story that flows from beginning to end like Proud Mary, or Chuck Berry’s Promise Land or Jerry Reeds She Got the Goldmine,or Bobby McGee. etc. It’s like a fine painting by Renoir or Norman Rockwell, everything is there you don’t feel like you missed the point and it just feels natural. Of course there are great mysterious songs that you have to listen many times to, to understand it (Simon and Garfunkel) and Mick Jagger ? forget it….. anyway I would love to write a song that everybody liked; who wouldn’t….