I can happily enjoy plenty of music without taking too much notice of lyrics, or I may notice them but don't necessarily understand them or feel much motivation to take the time to decipher them. Some songs I've heard many many times and still don't know much of the lyrical content or take it in. Then again sometimes lyrics can strike me with a powerful image or meaningful line that makes me sit up and take notice and the words just can't be missed, they are so strong - here's 2 examples:
'She's well acquainted with the touch of the velvet hand
Like a lizard on a window pane' (Happiness Is A Warm Gun) - it grabs my attention, and it's powerful.
Or less mysteriously:
'Well, I try my best
To be just like I am,
But everybody wants you
To be just like them' (Maggie's Farm) - which expresses a feeling and viewpoint that I indentify with strongly and has a universal meaning (brilliantly put) outside it's context. Morrissey also can do similar things.

So I wouldn't want to say - lyrics don't ever mean as much to me as the music. It just depends on the song. Sometimes though it seems to be more about the words than the music - and that can put me off. Dylan probably has less to offer those who don't want to concentrate on the lyrics than most - he often really makes you listen to the words, which can be hard work and too much in some cases I find - but that could just be my failing. Then again his phrasing of words can be music in itself. There are many different approaches to music and I just welcome the diversity basically.

Just thinking about this myself. There was a review in Fridays Independent which focused on the lyrics for three quarters of its length. This is a result,I suspect, of journalists writing record reviews. Journalists, by profession, use words and hardly surprisingly they are likely to listen harder to lyrics than the average muso.

Personally I've always reacted to the sound before the words,I still dont know what the words are to some of my favourite songs and dont care. It was a clear 25 years after the event when I first understood Louie Louie!

Here is a question, what was the first album with lyrics printed on the sleeve somewhere?

I can remember words on Sgt Pepper but not Revolver. No lyrics on Bob's early stuff. Mid late sixties sometime I guess.

...will have a more than passing acquaintance with the meaningless, but tuneful, lyric.

"Master of things.
Songs cast alight on you.
Hark thru dark ties.
That tunnel us out of sane existence.
In challenge as direct.
As eyes see young stars assemble.

Master of light.
All pure chance.
As exists cross divided.
In all encircling mode.
Oh closely guided plan.
Awaken in our heart"

*shrug*

...gentle mass touch!

Yes, I generally respond to the music/melody before the lyrics as well.

My take on this is that there have been loads of great songs with excellent tunes and rotten lyrics but never the opposite.

It's a noisy rag bag of unlistenable drivel and codswallop.

It's been one of my bugbears for years this. I couldn't give a stuff about the lyrics most of the time. There are songs I've listened to for years, where I still don't know the lyrics.

Has anyone had the experience of reading lyric sheets of songs they've know for ages and going, "bloody hell, this isn't what I've been listening to!"?

It's all Bob Dylan's fault. His music was all lyrics. For a brief time he sounded 'edgy', and made a lot of already paranoid freaks in the sixties even more paranoid. (Most of his lyrics are just accusations: 'How does it FEEL?' etc.) Before him, mainstream pop was happy with platitudes aimed at teenagers, and I don't think music was any the worse for it.

(An aside: one of the funniest stories associated with pop is Dylan mis-hearing the lyrics to I Wanna Hold Your Hand - "I get high". If the Fabs had been a bit more on the ball, they would have pointed out that lyrics are irrelevant, it's just what you interpret them as from the feel of the song. Thereby putting Dylan back in his closet and not letting him have the influence he had.)

Lyrics should be just hooks to hang onto the melody. Most of the lyrics I know are just the opening line and whatever is in the chorus. "Whaddya do when you get lonely/ And no-one's waiting by your side..." er, what's the rest again? Oh yeah, "Layyyyla! You got me on my knees..."

Of course, we know who's REALLY to blame. Journalists. The amount of reviews I've read which are just an analysis of the lyrics, because most of the writers can't be arsed/aren't talented enough to get across the feel of the music in print. At least you can quote a lyric in your 600 words of deftless prose. I'd like to see how many copies of these lyric sheets would sell on their own, shorn of their music.

All together now: A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop...

...it seems to me a lot of rock journalists don't care about the actual music.

In a lecture we recently looked at the lyrics of 'Anarchy In The UK'. They looked pretty crap in cold print, some lines even drew laughter due to the sheer ineptitude!

I will controversially say that it depends on the artist.

Agree that often the lyrics don't matter but with Billy Bragg, Half Man Half Biscuit, Eminem, Mike Skinner and solo Morrissey, the lyrics are what you're cocking an ear to first and foremost. In those cases, the music matters less (although it helps if it's good).

If then you are listening to someone who is a brilliant musician/singer, then the lyrical importance fades away. Will a Clapton fan really be expecting (or wanting) perfect lyrics?

Personally, I don't like when it when lyrics are streams of important-sounding enigmatic arty toss. All of Duran Duran's output falls under this category. It annoys me that Le Bon sings a song as if it is poignant when all he is doing is singing about shadows in the rain etc.

I don't "understand" music. I don't understand the technical stuff about chords etc and rarely does anything give me a visceral reaction. I like MUSIC but I can't get overly excited about it. When I listen to music I pay attention to the words. The music is a small part of it for me. And I do think bad tunes can be saved by good words.

I remember a review for the DVD-A of "Dance Of Death" by Iron Maiden in a What Hi-Fi type magazine. The reviewer mentioned that the vocals come out clear but not that it matters, I mean, after-all who actually pays attention to the lyrics in Iron Maiden songs? Well, me actually. I love those Hammer Horror comic book stories. Their lyrics mean a lot more to me than their galloping music.

I love music that tells a STORY. The majority of lyrics are usually abstract ie. a bunch of cool but meaningless phrases strung together (U2). Or they're an exploration of personal feelings (Nine Inch Nails, most singer-songwriters). These are okay but I much prefer a short story that starts at A, goes through B and ends at C (example: I want to hold her hand. I get rejected so become a missionary. I end up sitting on a throne made up of the skulls of my enemies. The end). Most lyrics start at A and never go anywhere (example: I want to hold her hand. The end).

It's a rarity when anyone sings a short story. This might be why I really like Chris De Burgh as a lot of his early stuff was proper story telling.

I have a few instrumental albums. I can enjoy them if they're up temp but down tempo is just boring to me. And I always feel that I'm wasting my time listening to them. What's the point of music without words? Obviously a lot, but to me music without words is a struggle as my attention wanders very easily if there's no words for me to cling onto.

Think of Dylan v Leonard Cohen. Fine lyricists the two, but only one has the tunes. Who is widely regarded as one of the few true geniuses of popular music and the other a bit of a cult?
Think of Like a Rolling Stone. Anyone heard the Bootleg series early version? Anyone listen to that on a regular basis? Is the version we all know and love widely regarded as one of the greatest singles/songs ever because of the lyrics? Nope.
Why when rival magazines produce lists of the 50 greatest Dylan songs, they're always his best tunes? Noone of course talks about the music because this would be uncool.
Think of Highlands (Time out of Mind) v Desolation Row. One is endlessly listenable and at ten minutes frankly too short. The other is hard to listen to beyond the first three minutes or so. Is that because of the lyrics? No

Reading this thread made me realise how little attention I've paid to lyrics over the last few years. Sure, I still avidly read the words in the sleeve when I first buy a CD, but really don't take them in when I'm listening.

Yes, so many of my favourite groups (the aforementioned Dead Can Dance, Arcana, Nine Inch Nails, Rammstein) do a lot of instrumentals or do not have traditional lyrics, or lyrics in English. But recently even those with understandable lyrics have failed to grab me. It could be down to my addled brain, but they certainly don't seem as memorable or important as they did in my youth, when I could quote endless lines verbatim. Now, it seems, it's mostly the music that matters, and the lyrics are just a bonus or another type of sound.