No one so far has successfully shown that P. G. Wodehouse had a tin ear, so that his opinion of American songwriters is worth noting:

The tendency towards excessive weight is not the only peril which the revue-writer has to face. If he possesses a sensitive ear for a false rhyme there are few ordeals (except watching the ’Varsity match at Queen’s Club) more terrible than a day’s song-hunting. Song-hunting is a painful necessity. It is a curious fact that the United States, like the devil, seems to have all the best tunes, and as you want the best tunes in a revue you have to go to the publishers who own the English rights. But it is another curious fact that the United States produces the worst lyrics in the civilised world. You know how American lyrists work? First, they get a catchy phrase, then they simply shove down anything till they have got about a dozen lines, and then they go out to lunch and tell people they have written a cracker-jack. “Won’t you come to Tennessee?” let us say, occurs to the bard as a useful opening. Within five minutes he has produced a chorus running as follows:

Honey, won’t you come to Tennessee?
Oh, my hon, my little hon, you’re the one
I’ll be pleasin’ with my teasin’ an’ my squeezin’!
When the moon am gleaming
I have such loving feelings.
Oh, baby, don’t be deceiving,
Oh, my hon! oh, my hon! oh, my hon!
Honey, won’t you come to Tennessee?

I have sat in a small room for a whole afternoon while no fewer than five members of a publishing firm sang that sort of thing in different keys. One of them snapped his fingers and did ragtime steps on the hearthrug. As Longfellow said of the sea, but might have said of revue-writing, “Only those who brave its dangers comprehend its mystery.” Longfellow, by the way, was the only American poet who could write six consecutive lines without introducing the words “hon” or “baby.” — P. G. Wodehouse, “How to Write a Revue”, The Daily Mail, December 19, 1913

After nearly a century, Wodehouse’s assessment still seems valid.