re: Anyone else not care about the meanings of songs?

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Actually I do both. I find it impossible to understand the meaning/feeling of a song set apart from the lyrics.

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and my title is actually wrong, its not that I dont care about the meaning, its that I can rarely understand what is being sung lyrics wise in a song. Its just the way my brain functions I guess.

Just curious - what type of musician do you prefer? One who is perfect in technique or one who isn't great technically but plays with a lot of feeling?

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I'm thinking of Springsteen's Born in the USA, where the feeling of the song is energetic and happy, and the lyrics are dark and about struggle, depression and death.

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Because it's about putting on a happy face and pretending everything is ok when everything is f&%ked up and needs to be changed. The whole theme of the song is that what is happening to the people described should not be possible "in the USA", but that these kinds of things happen far too frequently. It's a song about how the U.S. rants about American Exceptionism, but that outcomes for individuals often feel like all of that lofty rhetoric is just that: empty rhetoric. It's a political song that is treading the line of being both patriotic yet incredibly critical of America.

With all that said, I'm not a huge fan of the song because much like "I Will Survive", it is just repeating the same synthesizer riff and chords over and over again with zero variation. Most songs have at least A and B sections, and usually A, B, and C sections. "Born in the USA" is just A all the way.

We're very much so on the same page. I think that is why Reagan chose the song. I think a lot of people who didn't grow up in that era and didn't listen to the lyrics too much just wrote it off as some kind of jingoistic patriotism song like all the "Boot up their arse" country songs that came out after 9/11, but it really is a much more interesting critique of how the American dream needs saving. Reagan was so successful on the campaign trail because his platform resonated with the kinds of people who were facing the same struggles as the people described in the song. The song is somehow patriotic, cynical, depressing, and hopeful all at the same time. That is the power of lyrics.

Some lyrics are great because of the stories they tell.

Some are great because of the witty wordplay or images they are able to convey.

Some lyrics are just fun to say.

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Actually I do both. I find it impossible to understand the meaning/feeling of a song set apart from the lyrics.

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So how do you feel about instrumental music? For me, the melody carries as much (or more) heft than any lyrics.

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I love music but the lyrics are secondary to me.

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I will just never understand this way of thinking.

Lyrics, songs, poems, etc.. all go together with me.

Songwriting to me is just as much about the lyrics as the chord progression, or lead guitar during the breaks... to each his own I reckon

the funniest is when you see thousands of chicks singing along with "Lips of an Angel" by Hinder.

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If the music kicks arse, and the lyrics suck, the song sucks.

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I don't agree with this (at least not usually.) Even for my very favorite bands, I don't know a lot of the lyrics. I maintain that writing a good melody is the hardest act in the musical arts. I never understand why Bernie Taupin gets more than a small fraction of the credit for "songwriting" that Elton gets, e.g.

Stated differently: if Bernie Taupin gave you "finished" lyrics to 12 songs and told you to come up with melodies, harmonies and rhythms to go with them, barely anyone could do that competently (like, maybe 1 in a million). If it were the reverse, a person of slightly above-average intellect could create passable lyrics to go with the incredible music.

The melody is the hard part.

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If the music sucks, and lyrics kick arse, the song sucks.

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There's a lot of songs that, in my opinion, have mediocre to terrible lyrics that I absolutely love. A few submissions:
Helter Skelter - The Beatles
Love Gun - Kiss

The Beatles have a lot of songs with simple dumb lyrics.

It all depends on the artist. I find a lot of songs don’t mean anything, they’re just something to sing. And people ty to ascribe meaning to them is weird and pointless because there’s nothing there. Others actually write songs that have meaning and it’s generally easy to pick those apart from the crowd even if the writing seems ambiguous.