Great songwriters are few and far between. How well any given song works often has more to do with who is singing it than anything else. I can't tell you how many times I've heard great performers take what I'd thought was a mundane and unfocused bit of scribbling and make something memorable or even powerful out of it. In fact, there are singers out there who can squeeze the whole of the human experience out of "Well, Well, Well" or "Mmm, mmm, mmm".

The fact of the matter is, it's likely that the folks you hear who "often have nothing original or interesting or ear-catching to say in their songs" just aren't particularly good at "selling a song", and that in the right hands, that song could make you laugh or cry.