What are the Best Acoustic Guitar Songs ever written?

How can we decide on the best acoustic guitar songs ever? Musicians have been writing and recording great acoustic guitar songs for decades, so there's plenty to choose from. I'd like to share a selection that I think could qualify to be among the best.

Back in the 60s, the Beatles were writing some classic songs for the acoustic guitar. No acoustic guitarist's repertoire is complete without Blackbird, but they also produced acoustic classics such as Here Comes the Sun. Their contemporaries the Rolling Stones also contributed to the genre with tracks such as Angie.

Folk musicians commonly make use of the acoustic guitar, and folk artists such as Nick Drake (Pink Moon, River Man) and Simon & Garfunkel (The Sound of Silence, Mrs Robinson) have written some classic songs. Richard Thompson is also known as a great writer of acoustic guitar songs, particularly with classics such as Beeswing and 1952 Vincent Black Lightning.

Many great acoustic songs have also been created by artists more traditionally thought of as heavier rock musicians. Led Zepplin's Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You is a great example of a rock band employing acoustic guitars to broaden their tonal pallette. More Than Words provided Extreme with their biggest and most memorable hit song, although it sounds a world away from their usual output. And Eric Clapton reworked his rock classic Layla into an acoustic classic on his Unplugged album, which also included another classic acoustic song Tears in Heaven.

Artists such as David Gray (Babylon) and Jose Gonzales (Heartbeats) as well as many others ensure that acoustic guitar is still popular today, and many more great songs are being written and recorded on the instrument.

Is this really a selection of the best acoustic guitar songs? Of course there are many artists we've missed out who have produced great songs on acoustic guitar, such as Steve Earle, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan. A list of the best acoustic guitar songs can never be complete, but I hope this has given you some pointers to a few great ones.