[Yardstick]

Yeah, I guess the Nabokov name drop was kind of tacky. But Neil Pert has Sting easily beat in the bad lyrics category. He’s kind of like an Aynd Rand novel set to music.

Paul Simon is probably my favorite lyricist. In an interview he said one of his approaches to writing lyrics is to start by scat singing word fragments and unformed phrases and seeing what emerges. So he starts with words as sounds, and their meaning comes later.

[Clemenza]

"When I think about all the crap I learned in high school..."

I am a Paul Simon fan, although he hasn't released a great album since 1975.

[Zetman]

So he starts with words as sounds, and their meaning comes later.

An approach emulated by the Clinton's (with the "meaning" part being completely optional!!).