and would agree that the music comes first. However I do think that quality lyrics bestow credibility to an artist. In the pantheon of great songwriters I am not sure I would include Monsieur Betrand.

how songs like When A Man Loves A Woman or In My Life or The Boxer would bed down immutably in my memory without their lyrics.

I don't think I love any song JUST for its lyrics but then again I don't listen to music and make such distinctions when I'm listening. The accumulative effect is the enjoyment.

To me they work separate from the song and I have somewhere thousands of exercise books covered in scrawled lyrics to prove it. I have lost count of the number of times I have embarrassed myself by drunkenly reciting lyrics at anyone who would listen, from The Smiths, Half Man Half Biscuit, The La's, Pete Doherty, even Goldie Lookin' Chain...too many to name.

A good lyric winds its way around your brain in a way that you cannot shake off. When someone writes a lyric that you empathise with, or that makes you laugh or which you feel you could have written (if only you had the tiniest morsel of talent) - to me it can outweigh the music in power and emotional resonance.

I often feel with early Dylan that the guitar and the chords are just a prop - in 'The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carrol', everything is stripped away to leave the lyric as the focus - it is almost all there is, and few would deny the power of that song.

To me, anyway. I can't get past shit lyrics. They ruin bands' entire output. I can live with pedestrian, but I can't live with outright bad ones.

Isn't the entire appeal of Half Man Half Biscuit based on Nigel's way with a phrase? Musically, they're nowt special, are they? But the lyrics make them so.

And as wonderful as the musicians in The Smiths were, without Morrissey's words they would've been nothing.

The reason the Doors are shite is nothing to do with their music, which is perfectly fine. It's nothing to do with Morrison's singing: he's good. It's his appalling sixth form portentous lyrics.

There are plenty of great bands who are great despite nondescript lyrics, but I don't think a band can be great if their lyrics are properly shite.

I realise not everyone feels this way, but as I said in the Kindle thread the other day, I've been in love with language for much longer than I've been in love with music. If it was a choice between music or books, books would win. Maybe that's why I care so much about lyrics.

Here are four examples:

Scott Walker - The Old Man's Back Again. Decent tune but it's the lyric about individuals caught up in events they have no control over that elevates this to greatness

Half Man Half Biscuit - though they are not the 3 chord wonders that some deride them for, does anyone listen to them for the tunes? Exhibit number 1 of several hundred (L'Enfer c'est les autres from 90B(C))

Would anyone listen to this MOR schmaltz if it wasn't for Karen's heartbreaking lyrics? (Carpenters - Goodbye to Love)

and finally, would we really remember this song if it had been "Scrambled Eggs, oh my baby just loves Scrambled Eggs"?

(HJHs - Yesterday)

When I was a kid I learned every word to my favourite songs either by lsitening to them over and over again or by reading Smash Hits. Even then, the meaning of the words didn't really mean much to me, knowing them helped me enjoy them song more. I can't remember ever trying to figure out what they mean I just wanted to be sure I knew them all in the right order.

Nowadays they mean practically nothing to me and I am purely listening for the music and I only really hear the voice as an instrument.

Since I have started to write songs this year this is coming back to bite me in the arse as I am struggling so much with lyrics and have loads of tunes sat on my computer without words, just melodies.

2 examples:
I can still (let's, for the sake of argument, assume a drink has been taken) get a bit sniffly at the end of Vincent Black Lightning. It's such a good story.

Now, I also love Jackie Leven's "Another Man in the Old Arcade". But I struggle, every time I hear it, to get past the line about the sea bing salty because the fish cry too when their fishie buddies get, well, fished.

It clunks a bit. I can list a bunch of stuff I listen to which is good musically, but really comes into its own with the lyrics attached: Del Amitri, Lloyd Cole, John Martyn, hell, Springsteen even.

I've come to realise that many people can sing along without understanding any of the lyrics at all, or, on a higher level, without any appreciation of how intelligent or how rubbish well-known songs are.

For me, the music has always come first. Good lyrics (like Moon River, or Rocket Man) have always been well outweighed by rhyming trash (change /rearrange) that it would be better not to understand. Then again, loads of songs have incomprehensible lyrics, a case in point being Come On Eileen, discussed here recently: I've heard it hundreds of times, never got anything after Johnnie Ray; or Damo Suzuki's little bits of English scrambled up with... well, it's not English, sounds great on Tago Mago though.

Crap lyrics and overbearing vocalists are what gives pop & rock a bad name, and what drives people to jazz. Or classical. Actually, when they start singing is when I change the station, so perhaps it's just me.

Lots of lyrics in both and a story

Rod Stewart The Killing of Georgie

Robbie Williams Me and my Monkey

There are plenty examples of decent tunes with mediocre lyrics but I'm trying to think of an example of a great lyric attached to a rotten tune or poor performance. Struggling to think of any specific examples at the moment... perhaps some late Pogues where MacGowan still had the lyrical touch but had practically lost the ability to sing (or speak)?

It all depends on the band. Decemberists, lyrics are really central to their whole appeal. Beatles, they could make a load of nonsense (love me do) sound thrilling and yet could turn out a wonderful lyric (things we said today) without losing the pop appeal.

... or appreciate Elvis Costello, Squeeze or Tom Waits nearly as much if their lyrics were as inane as Wang Chung's 'Dance Hall Days.' I hate that song with a passion, and it's mostly because of the lyrics. It's not a great tune either, but it would work better as an instrumental.

Peerless.

"why do I find it hard to write the next line?" - who cares?
"and that's a good line to take it to the bridge" - no it's not

Possible exceptions:
10 Storey Love Song
Anything where James Brown says he'd like to go to the bridge

for adoring Dylan has to be the stunning quality of his lyrics.

why do people listen to opera, mishear the words, and put up with plainly crap lyrics?

Lyrics might be important to you,
but they're not that important to the song.

If you change the melody or chords, the song ceases to be what it is. However, lyrics can be substituted, and translations made, and the song remains the same.*

I'm speaking as someone who loves lyrics, BTW. I just think a little perspective is in order.

*Pun intended.

I heard this on Danny Bakers "History Repeats Itself" a few weeks ago.
It's written by Adriano Celantano in a gibberish that is supposed to sound like how Italians hear English.
I think it sounds fantastic!

What about hip hop?