Originally Posted by Terrapin_Station

I'm an atheist, and I've always been an atheist--I didn't even really know about religious beliefs growing up; when I first learned about them in any detail I seriously thought it must have been a practical joke people were playing on me re claiming that they believed such things. Despite this, I love gospel music.

However, I don't normally care about lyrics when it comes to music. There are some exceptions--there are a handful of lyricists I'm particularly fond of, plus I have a fondness for what I call (after Zappa) "googly moogly" lyrics--stuff like "Rubber Biscuit", "Surfin' Bird", "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da", "Radio Ga Ga", "Cobrastyle", etc., and there are three "exception" genres where I do normally pay attention to lyrics--country, hip hop and anything comedy-oriented, but for the vast majority of music, including the vast majority of stuff I love, I have little idea what the lyrics even are.

With gospel, I actually do like the positivity and inspiration-orientation of a lot of the lyrics, but I don't pay much attention to lyrical details with it.

I'm attracted to music because I like the art of doing things with sounds. I'd never "subtract points" from anything because of lyrical content (the semantic (meaning) content of lyrics, that is). And there aren't any lyrics that I'd say are "bad." I have no concept of what a "bad lyric" would be. Lyrics only have to do with sounds when it comes to phonemes, the rhythm of the words, etc. That's part of what I like about "googly moogly" lyrics--they focus purely on phonemes and rhythm, and that's also part of why one of my favorite lyricists is Yes' Jon Anderson. Phonemes, phrasing/rhythms were always one of his primary focuses.