How often do you pay attention to lyrics?

That's understandable, as it's all about context and what we're used to doing within our comfort zone.

As an analogy, the phone card number I've had for 15 years and still use on the very rare occasions when I've forgotten my mobile or it's gone flat I dial from memory based on the pattern of my finger movements on the number pad, but if asked to accurately recall it digit for digit outside the phone booth I wouldn't be able to do it most occasions. That's why I almost never get it right on phones with keyboards used to send texts/emails when I'm used to the numbers being in a grid instead of one long line.

 

Usually, but just as often the flow of the words rather than the actual lyrics. There are lots of songs with lyrics that aren't necessarily deep that flow well.

 

It depends on the type of music it is.

Typically the words just flow along with the music and I don't spend much time isolating the lyrics or the meaning. But if I hear a really bad lyric, I end up not liking the song. Bad lyrics stand out much more than good lyrics to me.

However if the song is very ornate or proggy or is something where the music is the first focus, I usually don't even concentrate on bad lyrics.

Conversely if the music is roots based (like blues or Americana or something) then the lyrics stand out and I will listen to them more than the music (which is more or less the same old thing). I am often amazed at how people will consider some Americana band so great when the lyrics are so terrible or not even terrible... but just sort of incomplete or unremarkable.

 

If it is Lemmy sreaming, I don't care what the words are.

 

As a kid, my dad would bring home a 45, sit me down and say "David, I want you to listen to this song." My dad was a lyrics type guy if the story was good, and I learned to appreciate good storytelling in song.

For me, it's all in the TYPE of music I'm listening to. If it tells a great story, then I'm all in. But if it's something like Rock and Roll, by LZ, then I'm a wantin' ta git up and dance.

That's it in a nutshell...

 

Any song with smegma in it pretty much ruins it for me.

 

This is sort of the way I approach it. James Taylor songs are pretty straightforward, so I know what they're about, but his phrasing, the way he sings them is very important. Even if I don't know the language, I can enjoy just the sound of the words if they fit into the song in a musical way. (Obviously this becomes more of a problem if a song goes on for nine verses, but with shorter tunes like Antonio Carlos Jobim, it isn't really a problem.)

Sometimes I have gone for years enjoying a song without really hearing/understanding the lyrics and what it was about. Sometimes when I understand what it is about, it makes it less appealing.

Another thing I like is nonsense lyrics like John Lennon's or some of the vague impressionistic things by Neil Finn. Or non-word lyrics like Cocteau Twins.

It's all good. I like Dylan too, but sometimes the music is a little tedious. Leonard Cohen at least intersperses the verses with good instrumental breaks (like in his London concert DVD).

 

I mostly notice them if they're particularly bad - or great.

 

The music would have to be darn good to redeem lyrics like that. Looks like something scribbled on the subway platform wall.

 

Rarely. It's (usually) all about the music maaaaan!!!!

 

I'm a songwriter so I should pay attention more. I'm just not hardwired to hear the lyrics. I'm absolutely terrible at being able to decipher them without a lyric sheet.

I am glad to see that those of you who listen to the lyrics seem to be quite lenient about their quality or lack thereof. I've come across some poor souls on the interwebz who are really troubled by lyrics that don't make sense, to the point that it's a complete dealbreaker. All I can say is popular music is not often a good place to be looking for a great literary experience.

 

I'm more interested in the genre and style, production, and arrangement of the music than the lyrics per se. 'Good' lyrics are icing on the cake but as long as the vocal delivery fits the music that'll win me over.

 

There are a lot more words than there are notes, and when most guitar music is just recycled from the past this makes lyrics very important to me.

 

Always.

 

Custard Pie is still best hearing / knowing the words, coupled with Plant's delivery and the band, as a total package.

 

I don't notice lyrics too much, but I do notice if they scan badly, with the accent on the wrong syllables. A lot of modern pop songwriters seem not to care about this and it's really grating to me. So I suppose if I do notice lyrics, I notice them "musically".

 

I was just listening to some David Bowie tonight, and when I got to "Young Americans", I decided once and for all, after 40 years, that I was going to look up the lyrics. What I always thought was a random stream of consciousness, a bunch of drugged-up gibberish, turned out to be a scathing comment on America. Wow! I really had never paid any attention to the lyrics before tonight. I'm glad I did. Now I understand the song.

Mr. Jones had always been fascinated with American culture, so the song is supposed to be about his impression of what he actually encountered when he got here. But, damn! He still loved soul music so much that he recorded the album at Sigma Sound.

 

Always

 

Well, I only started to learn English when I was eight and my main motivation to learn English was because I wanted to understand what the voices from the radio were singing about.

So yes, the lyrics do play a big role for me. The music is as important, of course. It is also an attention puller. Your lyrics can be great but I have great difficulties to stay focused listening to the song Heroin for example. So the music has to have an "appeal factor". (Great term, innit?)

The vocal sound by itself has a lot to do with listening as well. I can't stand the voice of Bob Hite. So listening to the song is getting quite a job.

And than there are songs that I have listened to once I did speak English and whoosh, all the magic was gone. (She Sells Sanctuary). It may be hard, perhaps even impossible to understand for native English speakers but those who had to learn English as a second language and started doing so at a later age, don't have the ease of understanding a song when they hear it go by. They have to listen several times to it before all the lyrics are heard, let alone understood.

The result is that when you finally understand what it's all about, the result can be that all the magic's gone. (MacArthur Park was a very strange and disappointing understanding). Very dramatically talking about a cake in the rain, seriously? With such great music???? Aaaaargh, cry, sniff and snotter.

On the other hand, songs as: In the Ghetto, Suspicious Minds, A Day in Life, Penny Lane or The Prophet's Song, I'm in Love With My Car (Imagine, learning car terms in English, how cool did that look during an English lesson at school?) Death on Two Legs. They turned out to be fantastic stories and/or life lessons. So great stuff to discover.

So, lyrics, yes, important to me but not a matter of life and death...

 

Waaaaay less than I do to the music.

The music generally overtakes me unless the lyrics are really good (a la Dylan, Lennon, Simon, Springsteen, Neil Young, Grateful Dead [Robert Hunter], etc.) or apropos of the way I'm feeling.

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It depends on the artist but for the most part I'm a music first kind of guy.

 

Lyrics for me are mainly a vehicle that carries the melody and emotion of a song.

If the lyrics were most important to me then I would regard myself more a fan of poetry than music, which I'm not.

I'm happy to let 90% of lyrics wash over me, so that the standout 10% can make a bigger impact.

 

Always, but not all songs are written with the intention of being lyrical masterpieces.

 

Lyrics are easily the least interesting thing in music. I cared about them a bit when i was a teenager, but even then i usually listened to music with no lyrics at all.

Of course I appreciate a good lyricist like Dylan, but they wouldn't be good without good music aswell. And the list of great lyricists like that is pretty small compared to how much great music there is.

I like the Jon Anderson method of choosing words because they sound good and fit the music rather than because they mean anything.