What Makes A Song Great?

Hello,

With there being so many kinds of great music in the world, I'm wondering what makes a song great? What exactly is the key element (s) that makes a song great? Is it the music, the melody, the singer, the lyrics, the feeling you get when you hear it, at what life stage you were/are at when you heard it the first time?

With me listening to all sorts of music lately as I compile my Top 500 songs of all-time blog, I've been thinking about just that topic. And honestly I haven't come up with a satisfactory answer yet. Literally I don't have a clue.

Here are some vastly different songs. All are great but they also are very different.

This song captures my ears right from it's very first note. Why is that? What makes this song so good? For me this song captures the feeling of loss so well. This was a very popular song when I was going through my divorce. Hearing this song always brings me back to that place in my life. But other people love this song that have never been divorced, so what is it about this song that makes it so great?

Lady Antebellum's amazing "Need You Now":



And why is this song that's completely different also so good? This is a fun song, a song that would be fun to sing along with at a concert.

?ZZ Ward's "Put The Gun Down":



Again another completely different song, but again another excellent song. Disturbed's "Down With The Sickness":



Or  how about George Jones "He Stopped Loving Her Today"?:



Or about Phillip Phillip's "Home":



Rush's "Tom Sawyer":



Or Tchaikovsky's "Dance of The Sugar Plum Fairy":



Or Taco's "Puttin' On The Ritz":



Again all these songs come from multiple genres but yet have a lot of greatness in them. I was hoping to uncover some answers as I thought about the question of a song's greatness. However I haven't come up with much yet. I think any song that we think is great has some emotional tie for us. Hmm?

I would love to hear your thoughts.

themusicaddict