OK - a bit like the fairground game of trying to knock coconuts off a stand by throwing a wooden ball at them. It doesn't matter how many balls you are throwing per minute (total energy being delivered) if the energy of each ball doesn't cross the threshold to knock the coconut off.

OTOH, the energy of a photon is such an abstract concept (not like the kinetic energy of a ball) that I'm not sure it really helps explain it.