How important are lyrics?

I'll be honest with you, I was quite stuck for an idea for this week's post. However, inspiration comes from the strangest of places, and this week it happened to come from my A-level French lesson; we had just moved onto the music topic (yay!) and I had to translate a sentence which read, "To me, lyrics are very important." and this got me thinking - how important are lyrics in a song? Does the quality (or lack) of the lyrics affect the quality of the song?

This is debatable. Of course, a song with profound, provocative lyrics is one which I will listen to over and over again simply to attempt to decipher what the artist was trying to say when he/she wrote it - but if the actual song wasn't of a high quality, I wouldn't be very likely to listen to it just for the pleasure of listening, for example whilst dancing about in my bedroom.

On the other hand, if the lyrics in a song don't mean anything ("The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed" being a prime example), it just feels like the artist doesn't care. Music is an art form, and art should always have a meaning. I find I feel more connected to an artist who channels their emotions, their feelings and their experiences, into the music they create.

I can think of one exception: I Am The Walrus by The Beatles. The lyrics make little or no sense; words thrown together for the sake of it. I heard somewhere that it was a backlash at the hundreds of music 'experts' trying to decode the lyrics in The Beatles' songs and making up nonsense that the band had never intended them to mean. In retaliation they decided to create lyrics that no-one could decipher because they didn't mean anything. 

As far as I'm concerned, the importance of the quality of the lyrics in a song is secondary to the importance of the quality of the melody, the riffs, the dance-ability. It does annoy me when artists get massive success from something which they haven't put any feelings into, yet not all of my favourite bands have outstanding lyricists, and I continue to listen to them because I thoroughly enjoy their music. Sometimes I'll sing along loudly to an album without even thinking about what the words mean anyway - basically, if the music is good, then good lyrics are just a bonus. Written by Molly McGrath.