Some scholars tried to link the narrative descriptions in the Han yuefu songs with historical events, but without greater success. It is clear that a lot of popular yuefu songs can be seen as critical to the social and economical circumstances of the Later Han period, a standpoint that was supported by the lower gentry which did not have access to the decisions made at the court and suffered from the chaotic results from the vaining of the court's influence. Some songs have a military background, like Han naoge shiba qu 汉铙歌十八曲. The terms qu 曲, ci 辞 and sheng 声 are not easily to distinguish, it might even be that there was no clear definition during that time what these terms clearly meant.
During the Later Han period writers started composing yuefu songs by themselves. This type of song has its origin neither in court music nor is it a "folk song". Songs of Mei Sheng 枚乘, Yang Xiong 扬雄 or Sima Xiangru are high-class literature. They simply imitated the style and mood of the yuefu songs.

Most yuefu poems are written in five-syllable verses and occasionally in seven-syllable or irregular verses. The sentence patterns are vivid and free, the language is naturall and fluent, the lexicon common and easy-to-undertand. Compared with the hymns and songs of earlier ages the yuefu songs are much more written in a natural and popular language. They were an important step in the advancement of Chinese poetry in form and content and open a very different literary genre. Poets of later ages loved the natural style of the yuefu poems and often imitated it, to contrast it with the very formal and "modern" regular poems (lüshi 律诗) that came up during the Southern and Northern Dynasties period 南北朝 (300~600) and flourished during the Tang. The yuefu was deeply connected with a certain content and also served for poems of social critique in later ages. During the Tang the yuefu even experienced a revival under Bai Juyi 白居易, Yuan Zhen 元稹 or Li Shen 李绅 as the so-called "new yuefu" (xin yuefu 新乐府). This type of poems was in use even by late Tang period writers like Nie Yizhong 聂夷中, Du Xunhe 杜荀鹤 and Pi Rixiu 皮日休.
All surviving Han period yuefu songs have been assembled in the collections Yuefu shiji by the Song period scholar Guo Maoqian 郭茂倩, Gu yuefu 古乐府 by the Yuan period 元 (1279-1368) scholar Zuo Keming 左克明, Gushiji 古诗纪 by the Ming period 明 (1368-1644) scholar Feng Weine 冯惟讷 and Guyueyuan 古乐苑 by Mei Dingzuo 梅鼎祚. All songs have furthermore been incorporated in Lu Qinli's 逯钦立 Xianqin-Han-Wei-Jin-Nanbeichao shi 先秦汉魏晋南北朝诗.

The genre of yuefu was very popular in southern China under the rule of the so-called Southern Dynasties 南朝 (420~589). There are in total almost 500 yuefu poems surviving from that time, most of them being on the popular level, although there were also some written by poets and writers. The Southern yuefu poems of that period are mostly included in the category Qingshang quci 清商曲辞 of the collection Yuefu shiji. Some few are to be found among the miscellaneous yuefu songs, like Xizhou qu 西洲曲, Dong fei bo lao ge 东飞伯劳歌 or Su Xiaoxiao ge 苏小小歌. Inside the Qingshang category, the Southern Dynasties yuefu belong both to the songs from Wu 吴 (the region of modern Jiangsu and Zhejiang) and the "songs from the West" (modern Hubei). The most famous songs from Wu are Ziye ge 子夜歌 "The song of Ziye", Ziye sishi ge 子夜四时歌 "Ziye's songs about the seasons", Huashan ji 华山畿 "The fields from Mt. Hua" and Du qu ge 读曲歌.

Writing "songs from among the people" was so popular that it is often not clear if a song was written by a court poet or was an anonymous composition from the countryside. The Bi yu ge 碧玉歌 "Green jade songs", for example, are attributed to the Prince of Runan 汝南王, but it might rather be of unknown origin. Other Bi yu ge songs are attributed to Sun Chuo 孙绰 or Emperor Wu 梁武帝 (r. 502-549) of the Liang dynasty who was a famous poet. Famous poets also writing yuefu songs were Xie Lingyun 谢灵运, Bao Zhao 鲍照, Xie Tiao 谢朓, Shen Yue 沈约, Wang Rong 王融, Jiang Yan 江淹, Wu Jun 吴均 and Jiang Zong 江总.

The themes of Southern Dynasties yuefu songs stand in the tradition of the Han yuefu, a lot of them including love themes, mainly women or girls yearning for their lover who is far away. Unlucky love is described in songs like Xiangyang yue 襄阳乐 or Aonong ge 懊侬歌. Among the Han yuefu were some very long songs that can be called ballads. Similarly long texts are among the western songs, like Xizhou qu.

A thoroughly new theme of Southern yuefu songs are deities or locally venerated spirits. 18 songs of this type have survived with the title of Shen xian ge 神弦歌. Some of them describe the temples and the surroundings, some the offerings or an encounter with the deity. Baishi lang 白石郎 "Master White Stone" is a deity venerated in the vicinity of Nanjing, Qingxi xiaogu 青溪小姑 "Mistress Green River" was a sister of the Three Kingdoms period 三国 (220-280) general Jiang Ziwen 蒋子文.

A lot of songs describe the daily life in southern China at that period of time, like raising mulberry trees and spinning silk in Cai sang du 采桑度, the travels of merchants in Aonong ge and Huang du 黄督, and market activities in Changgan qu 长干曲. While Han yuefu described very personal situations, the Southern yuefu are more descriptive regarding and connected with the the social, economical and geographical background and are therefore - at least from the content - close to the genre of rhapsodies (fu 赋). Another difference is that Han yuefu used a more direct language while Southern yuefu use to play with homonymes (lian 莲 "lotus" instead of lian 怜 "to yearn", or li 篱 "fence" instead of li 离 "to take farewell") and allegories.

Northern yuefu poems were written under the rule of the Sixteen Empires 十六国 (300~430) and the Northern Wei dynasty 北魏 (386-534). The more earlier songs are Qiyu ge 企喻歌 or Langye wang geci 琅琊王歌辞, among the later songs is Gaoyang wang yueren ge 高阳王乐人歌. The Northern yuefu are included in the category Liang gu jiao heng chui qu 梁鼓角横吹曲 of the collection Yuefu shiji. Northern yuefu are rated as crude and of minor quality in comparison with the Southern yuefu, probably due to the fact that a smaller part of them was compiled by court poets. Another reason is that the ruling class of the Sixteen Kingdoms and the Northern Wei dynasty was not Chinese. The yuefu composed under their rule were surely influenced by the own musical traditions of the Xianbei 鲜卑 and other peoples. There was apparently also an own institution at the Northern Wei court caring for the maintenance of the own musical traditions. There were also some books including Xianbei songs, like the Guoyu zhenge 国语真歌 and Guoyu yuge 国语御歌 recorded in the imperial bibliography Jingjizhi 经籍志 of the official dynastic history Suishu 隋书. Both books are lost. One (also lost) example of a poem including Xianbei thought and language was Da baijing huang taizi 大白净皇太子.
The surviving Northern yuefu are by no means simple translations of Xianbei songs. Style and lexicon shows that they were written in Chinese and by Chinese. The word lu 虏 "slave, barbarian, i.e. Xianbei" for example, that occurs in these songs, would never have been used by a Xianbei when writing in Chinese. The stylistic influence of the Southern yuefu can also be attested in some songs. Ziliu ma geci 紫骝马歌辞, for instance, is a mixed song of a quite crude part in the first stanzas and a much better imitation of an old Han yuefu in the second part. The poems Huang tan si ge 黄淡思歌 includes images only known to the southern region, like the Yangtse river or material objects. Poems with the tune Yongtai 雍台 are common among the Southern yuefu. The courts of the Southern Dynasties also played northern songs by their orchestras and probably revised the text, in which shape it came back to the north or was archived in the south.

While Southern yuefu are to a great extent poems talking about love, the main theme of the Northern yuefu is war, fighting and martial spirit, or the sadness of being captured and enslaved by the enemy, like Rong gu ge 隔谷歌 or Qiyu ge 企喻歌. Yet there are also poems like Zhuonuo ge 捉搦歌 or Yongzhou ma ke yin 幽州马客吟 that describe the hard live of the peasants without referring to belligerent activities. The importance of local landowners as protectors of the people in a situation when the central government was extremely weak is stressed in Langye wang geci. Love and marriage is also a theme, like in Di qu ge yueci 地驱歌乐辞, Zhuonuo ge or Zhe yang liu zhi ge 折杨柳枝歌, but in a very crude, direct and simple style very inferior to the Southern yuefu.

The most famous song from the North is Mulan shi 木兰诗, the ballad of the girl Mulan. The text might have been altered somewhat during the Tang period, but the basic elements of the text date from the Northern Dynasties period. It might have been it was originally a ballad of the Xianbei translated into Chinese, with later refining work added to polish the text.

Two Northern yuefu not recorded in the same category like others are Li Bo xiaomei ge 李波小妹歌 and Chile ge 敕勒歌. The first is a martial poem, the second describes the life of pastural nomads.