[danlikesgirls]

Yeah lyrics are pretty neat.

[FluffyMcNutter]

I swing both ways on this. I can love the way a song sounds, but if I hate the lyrics (usually because it's too co-dependent), then I'll start gradually hating the song. The opposite is the same. I can not particularly like a song, but once I know the lyrics, I might start loving it...and in some cases, there are songs I've known (and liked) for a long time, but one day, the lyrics suddenly make sense and it switches from like to love. I consider myself to generally be a lyrics person, but there are a number of instrumental songs that I love. See: anything Apocalyptica

Example of a song I liked and then hated because of the lyrics: The Script - Break even (What am I gonna do when the best part of me was always you)...Are you kidding me? That pisses me off. Ruins the song. IMO, the entire song is about a guy who treated his gf like shit and is now sad that she's happy with someone who doesn't treat her like shit. Get over it. But, I loved the song till I knew what it was about.

Example of a song I liked, but didn't love till I understood it: Father of Mine by Everclear. I have a really great dad, so I didn't understand it (it came out when I was about 15-16). I liked it, but I didn't understand. When I went to college and finally met people who didn't grow up like I did, I began to really understand the lyrics. It's a pretty powerful song. Makes me really happy to have the family I have...even if we are pleasantly dysfunctional. :-) Another one is Glory Box by Portishead. I was way too young to understand all of it's meaning when it came out ('94 or '95) and I certainly wasn't prepared for it to be a song that pretty much explains my romantic existence. But it is. And I'm not sure I was old enough to understand that until recently.

[bellisaurius]

My hearing could be better, so it's easier to lose myself in the sound. The cocteau twins are one of my favorite bands because of this.

However, I really like multiple layers of meaning, where the sound says one thing, but the lyrics another. One of the first things I ever did on the net was look up the lyrics to my favorite band, Lush (who I appreciated in the former way), and man, that was mindblowing.

[cue5c]

What about classical music then .... no lyrics as a general rule (unless we're getting into opera, is which case how many people here can understand that?) but it has been one of the moving forces in music for a few hundred years. In most cases it invokes more response from more people than any type of music that has EVER had lyrics.

That all comes down to accessibility. There may have been music all around the world, but the music that stuck was the one that was easiest to replicate. And once a sound has been around for a while, there's a lot of different ways to provoke responses. For instance, someone might listen to it not because of how it sounds, but because someone they loved listened to it. Whenever they hear that piece, they think of them. Also, the lack of lyrics makes it accessible to people from many cultures. I can get lost in music featuring a language I don't understand. It takes away the pressure to see what the artist wants you to and lets you create your own meaning, but I know quite a few people who go insane when they don't know what's being said. It's also free in terms of licenses, so it gets used in a lot of different mediums. One thing that I will never understand is the person who will "appreciate" things when they can't find anything wrong with it, even if they don't enjoy it. I see this a lot with classical music.

This is all a bit jumbled, but my point is that people respond to classical music because of how much they've been exposed to it. Everyone has a memory involving classical music. If other songs had the history and relentless saturation, we'd most likely have a similar response.

[daimonion]

Personally there is no classical that moves me as much as some of the meanings with music, although I am a sucker for the requiem for a dream soundtrack but again there is meaning stapled to it from the rather delightful film ;)