Articles
The Music We Listen To: Reveals and Reflects
The music we listen to, the music we enjoy, the music we sing does two things:
(1) It reveals our taste, our appetite, what we are interested in, what appeals to us, and, therefore, the kind of person we are.
(2) It exerts an influence upon us, playing a role in molding our thoughts, attitudes, conduct and character, and, therefore, the kind of person we are becoming. And that’s rather powerful!
The most important part of music (purely instrumental excepted) is the lyrics, the words, and the lyrics of much of most kinds of music are becoming worse with every new generation. So suggestive, so vulgar, so obscene, so crude, so violent, so tasteless are the lyrics of many songs that they have to be edited before being printed in the magazines sold to the public. If you want the full text, you have to buy the albums, many of which come with complete printed sets of the lyrics, or listen closely as the songs are played on the radio stations.
God help us for what, to a large extent, music has become. As parents, we need to know what our children are listening to, and as adults we need to he concerned about what we are listening to.
—Bill Crews
