The same but not...

I used to love to memorize the words to songs when I was a kid. My father had a collection of country music albums and I would stand beside the console record player for hours playing and replaying each song until I had memorized them all. Dad was a Marty Robbins, Jimmy Dean, Tom T. Hall fan - so there were lots of storytelling songs.

I think that is why good lyrics are so important to me - because I can relate to words that have meaning.

I have a friend and he likes the tunes, and if a tune is catchy, he will enjoy the song – but lyrics are not all that important to him.

We both love music. But we appreciate different parts of it.

Now, I could argue that the lyrics are the heart of the song and if the words are lousy then the song has no meaning.

And he could argue, just as forcefully, that if the music isn’t well written and does not have a beautiful melody or a hummable tune then no one will bother listening to the words – no matter how meaningful they are.

He’d be wrong of course. But he could argue it.

And yet we both love music. We both enjoy different aspects of the same art.