I'm glad to hear that other people are interested in melody, because I fear we're in the minority.

In my opinion, melody is the "meaning" in music. It's what the music is about.

The twentieth century was all about the death of meaning in art. Think of the modern things one studies in college - poetry you can't figure out, music by Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Schonberg, abstract art. All go further and further from meaning.

By now, even rock pop and country are devoid of melody.

I know a man who plays harp in resorts. He told me that he is asked again and again to play "Stairway to Heaven." That's because it's one of the few songs of the last fifty years with a melody.