Andrew,

I believe you're absolutely right.

"There are a whole lot of ways in which a lyric can work or not work even if the lyric is basically unintelligible"

Yes, I say thank you for the music! Also when we write on the lyrical parts of a song, we sometimes forget that music basically comes from our everyday speech, that is enhanced and dramatized to work in songs. Thats how I musicate - reading the lyric, finding its melody, try to put some sections to the fore over others etc. Every expression can work musically, and the twain are unbeatable :-)

And a lot of what is accepted in terms of abstract and plain is to be found in the categorizations of songs. You mention our own categories in relation to the writer-critic relationship, but also the genre categories contain information about the level of acceptance for abstract lyrics.

But there are exeptions to be found, even in country, and thats what crossgenre really means isn't it? But, I guess genres are developing (I don't like the word 'evolve', as plenty of recurrent trends are to be found) fast these days. And if our minds are evolving, we might slowly beging to accept a higher degree of abstract lyrics in the mainstream as well.

Please don't respond to my posts in this thread, I can't find more time to do this..

Well, now I really gotta go. Need to work to break into the music industry :-)