Spent last Saturday evening with mates, being royally entertained with wine, beer, chilli and excellent conversation as always.
During the course of the evening I happened to mention to Ritchie that I'd been listening to a couple of albums by one of his current favourite bands that he'd burnt for me last time we'd seen him, and that while I liked the music I thought their lyrics veered just the wrong side of pompous for me, being quite overblown and flowery. Trying too hard to be meaningful, if you know what I mean. His response?
"Oh, I don't listen to the words. I'm only interested in the music."
To my further astonishment, almost immediately, Ian agreed.
As someone who not only has had an abiding interest in the words to songs from a very early age (I still vividly remember singing "24 Hours from Tulsa" on my way to school, aged 8, and by that time I already had several years of lyric learning under my belt) but also now writes lyrics himself, I found this more than passing strange. Actually a more accurate term would be incomprehensible. It had literally never occurred to me before that anyone could listen to a song and not be interested in the words. Instrumental pieces, sure. Orchestral pieces, naturally. But the defining part of a song, for me, has always been the lyrics.
Just goes to show how even people you think you know really well can still surprise you.
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I gotta say i do listen to the lyrics but i don't really get immersed in them either. Oh, naturally if i've listened to a song enough times, i'll remember the lyrics and with some songs, it was a measure of status to be able to remember them all (American Pie, Bohemian Rhapsody, Paradise by the Dashboard Light, including the radio announcer stuff!) Overall, though, lyrics aren't as important to me as the overall effect of the song and maybe the chorus. Yes, lyrics are part of that, true. But i wouldn't necessarily notice if the lyrics were overblown, etc, that sort of thing. I wouldn't necessarily notice if the lyrics were particularly profound unless it happened to strike a chord with me on the off chance (like hearing Imagine the day before my dad's funeral and "Don't Stop" by fleetwood Mac on the day of the funeral, the line "All I want is to see you smile, if it takes just a little while" had me fighting not to cry as i drove down the highway!)
Anyway, i guess what i'm saying, is i'm somewhere in between your interest in lyrics and your friends' non-interest.
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