Originally Posted by DriveYourCarDownToTheSea

It is the words without a melody I find distracting, not words themselves.

I am attracted to notes more than words. If you have a composition with both notes and spoken word, I am automatically going to focus on the aspect of the composition with the notes and will mentally tune out the part with the spoken word, even if the aspect with the spoken word is supposed to be the focus of the song. However, it becomes annoying to find myself doing this, as it seems to me the spoken word part "gets in the way" of trying to listen to the notes.

On the other hand, if you have a composition with two aspects, both of which contain notes/melody, then I will focus on whichever of the two seems to be the focus of the song. In the case of a song with both a melodic singing line in addition to melodic background instruments, it is usually going to be the vocals that the song asks the listener to focus on, and in that case it is easy for me to oblige.

Someone already asked me about rap in foreign languages. You'll have to re-read that post.