Reflections on Songs and Artists that make you think

so, so many. I agree with you on the acoustic/cafe sounding songs being able to do this more than most other genres. Damien Rices' Amie is one of the sweetest songs I ever heard. I also love songs that are instrumental guitar. I have a lot of respect for people who can speak emotions and ideas through their guitar, and I can't wait to be able to do that myself. I know someone on chordie has a jimi hendrix quote "blues is easy to play, but hard to feel" which is so true. coffee house music is very emotional and full of heart, you have to be able to connect with the music you're playing in order to get the audience to connect with you. Music, and guitar definately have the ability to speak emotions, its the musicians' job to channel their emotions through their music.

I love this question. My mother tongue is DUTCH, but I speak fluently 4 languages and another 2 pretty well. I write this, being 50 years old, that when I was about 20, 30 years, I just listened to the music and not the lyrics or words.
The song with the BIGGEST effect on me, it hit me like a cannonball was, after I had an affair with a super model, we even planned to move to South Africa, when that affair saw daylight. It is a period
in my life, speaking of 1988, that I want to forget, but I still think, strange enough not about her, but about the time we had each other. The song was DON'T FORGET TO REMEMBER written and performed by the Bee Gees.
What I can see very clearly now, is that youngsters, like my daughter, 20 years old, was singing at the age of 5, the COMPLETE LYRICS of the guns and roses hit: KNOCKING ON HEAVENS DOOR.
So maybe I am speaking for a lot of older people here, you have to admit that, except for MTV, there are a lot of music stations, and even more on Television. They learned to "mimic" the lyrics and to understand them.
Now I try to listen to the words, and I still see a lot of songs with stupid lyrics, and sometimes it is funny to translate them in my language, like: baby I miss you so, because I loved you so, the sun was shining, now it's raining. That's the kind of songs you will still find in 75%.
For super good lyrics, Crosby, Stills, Nash (& Young), and a lot more, recent artists too.
But what is your point of making, playing, composing songs: lyrics followed by music, or music followed by lyrics.

Hard question because it is hard to listen to a song objectively for me. If the guitar player does not catch my ear then I don't listen although if the band is tight and all the musicians are good then I will listen. I currently have about 1600 cd's, 200 cassette tapes and 350 albums in the house. I also produce for a D.J. in my spare time.  So I listen to a lot of rock & roll, classic rock, funk, disco, r&b, soul, hair metal, blues, not in that order but in general.  What really catches me is a musician who pours out heart & soul and it reflects in their playing.

Bootlegger.

Dear friend "boot", I know you are a very nice person and always giving advise (very wise too).
I know that if I have, knowing my condition, an occasion to go to the USA, I will certainly try to contact you. There are others too. Always ready to answer questions and to give advise and even solutions.That's what  I try to do also, and answering questions, and posting new topics.
I have, as you know all the time in the world since I stopped working, and I am so glad that I have found this site, and especially to see that a lot, you know I baptised the members into "chordians", because I love this word.
Those CD's and tapes, are they from musicians? And if, it must be very hard sometimes.
You know that I like to post "facts", I have a few new facts, and I will post them.
I also know that there are things like a "quiz" about music, and I love the responses, because there are a lot of facts that no one believe, or at least they are hard to believe.
But I think that a lot of facts are read and the things I write about this topics are 100% correct.

This topic, reflections on songs, is also a nice one. It is more difficult than I thought to give an answer so I answered the first song that popped up. Of course the more I or You think, the more you will find. And as I wrote, English is not my mother tongue, so our generation, of course more in Europe, we listened MORE to the music, than to the lyrics.
Boot, have a nice day, and talking about guitars, do you MAKE guitars too?