The words in music...

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I usually don't pay attention to the lyrics and just appreciate vocals for their melody. I do often struggle to understand the meaning if I do try to listen to the lyrics. I usually don't actually interpret them literally, as I understand that they're metaphorical, I just don't understand the metaphor.

I kinda do that, taking the lyrics literally I mean. Though in my case, I think it's more that I just don't understand the song (the message behind it, anyway) unless the lyrics are very literal. Take for instance almost any Nirvana song I know; I haven't the foggiest what the words mean in most of them, but in those cases I tend to view the vocals as just another instrument and am very fond of that band. I also remember being kinda confused when I first heard The Wall, as I just figured it was about them partaking of rock'n'roll excess. Didn't get til later that they were 'skewering' those things, as it were.

Probably why I listen almost entirely to Primus and Les Claypool's other projects because they just tell rather simple but interesting little stories with their own characters with various tragedies and triumphs.

I never understood listening just bare music without any words - for me the good composition is one with lyrics I appreciate. If they are on other lanhuage - I'll translate them to see if they are suitable for me or not.
However, I don'l listen to contemporary music at all.

I wonder how many people besides me routinely have trouble deciphering what is being sung in today's music, IOW modern production techniques seem to de-emphasize precise diction in favor of more "realistic" sounding quasi-mumbling drenched in reverb and too-loud backing instrumentation, just like the movies. if I don't have the lyric sheet in front of me, it all is mondegreens to me.

Oh, yeah!! I've often had trouble figuring-out what somebody was saying----even when I was a kid!! More than one time, I've played a song about a million times, to figure-out what was being said.

I mostly dislike lyrics themself. >90% are about "love" and related topics. That's boring! I was listening for Black/Death Metal for a long but get bored as well few years ago. Since then I listen old military songs and marches from various countries, 22 Gb collection. For me thet's perfect music - lyrics praising victory, bravery and glory are great. However few would understand.

Music for me was always supposed to be non literal, expressing emotions and sensations so i almost never think that what i am listening on a song is supposed to be interpreted literally.

I think background sound is often more of a problem for autistic people than others, though the vocal of some music is mixed so quiet that most people wouldn't be able to hear the words, and some singers do mumble. It's a known challenge to sound engineers to get the backing as loud as possible while somehow keeping the vocal audible, and to some extent they achieve that. Why they have to have maximum loudness I don't know. Best guess, the purpose of music is to reach the listener on an emotional level, and the louder it is, the stronger the effect, up to a point. Rock musicians especially like the backing to be loud, and with competitive music (chart singles), records are often compared by playing them one after another without changing the volume setting, so a quiet backing can really sound like the runt of the litter.

hence the continuing endurance of "unplugged" in the hearts of many music lovers. the reason for the "loudness wars" is to out-LOUD the competitors in the competition for listeners' ears, to be heard above the others on the radio. I am glad somebody invented Roland R-Mix, it allows me to correct this, to knock the backing mix down several decibels and/or raise the middle vocal up several decibels.

I spend a good amount of time on sites like SongMeanings and RockGenius, partially because it makes it easier for me to learn the lyrics to my favorite songs, as I often have trouble understanding how many singers enunciate their words, and partially also because they allow me to learn things about those songs that aren't immediately obvious from just listening to them or reading the lyrics, like what their deeper meanings are, what the circumstances were behind their writing, and other things like that.

It's interesting how my views on a song can change just from actually taking the time to read and follow the lyrics. I always knew that "The Poet and the Pendulum" by Nightwish was an epic-sounding song, but I never knew the lyrics were so dark and tragic, or that they were influenced heavily by a depressive period Tuomas Holopainen went through.

I usually cannot pick up the words when I listen to songs unless I read the lyrics. If I do read the lyrics, I often don't understand what the song means as a whole.

Most songs are about rubbish any way. I'm often disappointed when I learn the words of a song because they are mostly about stupid romantic love etc.

I prefer songs in foreign languages because I cannot really understand them. Before I became fluent in English I liked songs in English but now I think most them are rubbish.