«Today’s Lyrics Are Pathetically Bad» Rick Beato

Gotta say I Never got much out of Steely Dan lyrics. 

That may be, and I don’t disagree,  But the issue here is not Steely Dan’s lyrics per se.  Nonetheless, an argument could be made that their lyrics are a perfect fit for their at often vapid, urban-hip overall musical aesthetic delivered with ultra-precise technical execution.  Still, with a couple of notable exceptions from their past catalogue, hardly top-forty.material.

As concerns the claimed “nuances” in today’s popular music and its lyrics which are on a similar level of artistry and that might appeal to an equivalent percentage of the music listening public as did the songs of Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell, Elton John/BT, Marvin Gaye, Simon and Garfunkel, Jimmy Webb, yes The Beatles (just a few that come to mind), please educate me and post some examples.  Honest request.  ​​​​​​

As a young adult, I was wandering around aimlessly.  Then, the message from The Beatles -- Come Together added clearity and purpose to my life. I've enjoyed a long and prosperous carerer in underground ballon navigation, and never looked back.

That’s actually pretty funny.  Well done. 😊

As a kid, when we were driving around my father would make the same argument about how stupid is the music playing on the radio.  When he started up on that, I would start to sing "Three little fishies in an itty bitty pool.  Three little fishies and a momma fishy too.. ."  There are silly/dumb songs from any given time and cherry picking good and bad songs for comparison proves nothing.