The only reason these popular songwriters may be good is because they never listened to themselves thinking themselves great! They listened to people most of their worshippers never heard of, and never bothered looking up. The same is also true of writers - best writers don’t read James Michener and Danielle Steel.
The Beatles’ response to “what was it like to be a Beatle” is “what is it like to not be one?”. They can look at a photo and see some detail they don’t like or know what they were thinking there that the rest of the world doesn’t take away from seeing that photo.
And Ringo was a fan of Lightnin’ Hopkins before he joined the Beatles just as they were about to break.