«Today’s Lyrics Are Pathetically Bad» Rick Beato

'While some interpretations of the song would like to see it primarily as a celebration of a drug counterculture, any pretence the phrase “Brown Sugar” is other than a reference to a black woman falls away in the final lyric of the studio album.'

I won't argue with that; I was only remembering what someone who was theoretically an "insider"  stated in a book.  

Disclosure - I'm a 70 year old boomer and I'm becoming crotchety in my old age.

@8th-note , you've got five years on me, but how did your dad feel about Dylan and The Beatles?  I remember that my dad did not like either of them--not at all.  

I [...] mostly treat the vocals as another instrument.

I also like music that have vocals in languages I don’t understand

@oberoniaomnia is making an excellent point about the relative importance of lyrics.

I grew up listening to music in a language I did not understand, so I too treated the voice as an instrument. Those voices conveyed feeling and emotion, but about what? I did not know, and that was okay.

Later, I discovered that songs I really liked actually had embarrassing lyrics and I had to stop liking them, and the other way around.

To this day, I enjoy listening to music in languages in which I am not fluent or that I don’t understand at all.

I like darkwave too, and I don’t know why darkwave artists insist on singing. A good example is Hante., her lyrics are terrible (she writes in English, a language she obviously does not know well) and her voice is awful, but she’s a fabulous DJ. If only she kept her music instrumental.

@immatthewj - My parents didn't like long hair, especially when I let my hair grow, but they were pretty tolerant of new music. You mention Dylan and the Beatles and they are a great contrast with most of the popular music of today. The lyrics from the early Beatles were simple, clever, love songs and the tunes were catchy. Dylan put out some amazing poetry that was hard to dismiss by the older generation at the time.

Much of the stuff coming out now is either cliche ridden drivel or profane and abusive. There are good lyrics in some of the alternative artists but it takes a lot of work to seek them out.

Speaking of lyrics in a language that I, personally, cannot understand, I really like the cover, that Gal Costa did, in Brazilian, of It's All Over Now, Baby Blue.