Like Mick said “it’s the singer, not the song”. Although he wrote most of his…
I have no idea how many songs Bernie Taupin wrote for Elton John, but they are a good example of a singer working with a writer for decades.
Until of course, Mike Love sued Johnson - Love insisting that he in fact wrote 50% of the songs that made the whole world sing.
Sorry, I’m a Beach Boys geek.
mm
Heh. Me, too.
In the 1950s, when artists like Bob Dylan came along, the concept of a person writing and singing their own songs was such an anomaly that a new term had to be coined, and thus the “singer-songwriter” was born. Before that, singers were singers and songwriters were songwriters, and rarely the twain did meet. So this odd prejudice against people who sing songs that others have written, as implied by the OP, is a recent phenomenon (as tomndebb pointed out). It’s simply the current fashion. Who knows, the pendulum may swing back over time.