What’s The Deal With Deep Song Lyrics?
Gen-Z’s Fixation on Finding the “Hidden Truth” in Every Line
by Sarah Zdancewic B'29
published on October 17th, 2025
Gen-Z’s Fixation on Finding the “Hidden Truth” in Every Line
by Sarah Zdancewic B'29
published on October 17th, 2025
I can’t listen to a song without knowing the lyrics. When I’m not able to mentally sing along to every word, I find myself unable to pay attention to any other elements of the song—basslines, mixing, and chord progressions get lost when I’m trying to decipher nonsense sounds into intelligible words.
Sometimes, though, once I do eventually learn the words to a song—either by listening on repeat or resigning to scrolling through Genius—I still don’t know what they mean. Consider the song “Harness Your Hopes” by Pavement:
Well, show me a word that rhymes with Pavement
And I won't kill your parents and roast them on a spit
And a-don't you try to etch it, or permanently sketch it
Or you're gonna catch a bad, bad cold
What does this mean? Like, actually? For the casual listener, it’s really just a bunch of words that sound nice. For those who actually attempt to decipher the true meaning of the song, they find themselves on a wild goose chase of rhyming words and meta-reference.
As one annotation on Genius reads:
“Listeners are asked to name words that literally rhyme with pavement.
However, as readers dig deeper into the meaning of these lines, they realize that all the ‘rhymes’ that are suggested in the puzzle are actually ‘slant-’ or ‘half-rhymes’, which is a literary device that is used to signal disunity, lack of harmony, and imperfection.”
According to this perspective, the listener is supposed to get “depravement,” “engravement,” and “ailment” out of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th lines of the stanza, fulfilling the 1st line’s “request” for the listener to find words that rhyme with pavement.
While this thought process isn’t necessarily wrong, it is a little convoluted—and it’s indicative of a developing trend in how we treat songwriting on the whole. In 2025, Music IQ and comScore found that 94% of polled Gen-Z members said it was important for songs to have “meaningful lyrics” (2025 Genius Q2 Quarterly Report). It’s as if we’ve decided that lyrics that aren’t deep or clever don’t add to a song’s value—in fact, they actively detract from it. Consider the Swiftie, finding near-arbitrary connections between Taylor Swift songs in an attempt to prove that her new album’s lyrics are a work of literary genius.
I mean, maybe Taylor really was using the lyric “chasing shadows in the grocery line” in “Cardigan” to simultaneously comment on the public nature of her romantic relationships while also furthering a recurring motif throughout her whole discography—running into doppelgangers of her past lovers, as one user on Reddit wrote.
But is it really necessary to analyze the lyrics of a song to appreciate them? And do song lyrics really need a “deeper meaning” to be… good? I’m not saying that deep or profound lyrics aren’t a sign of a good song. But there are plenty of classic grooves that manage to be great without overly complex lyrics:
Sometimes, though, once I do eventually learn the words to a song—either by listening on repeat or resigning to scrolling through Genius—I still don’t know what they mean. Consider the song “Harness Your Hopes” by Pavement:
Well, show me a word that rhymes with Pavement
And I won't kill your parents and roast them on a spit
And a-don't you try to etch it, or permanently sketch it
Or you're gonna catch a bad, bad cold
What does this mean? Like, actually? For the casual listener, it’s really just a bunch of words that sound nice. For those who actually attempt to decipher the true meaning of the song, they find themselves on a wild goose chase of rhyming words and meta-reference.
As one annotation on Genius reads:
“Listeners are asked to name words that literally rhyme with pavement.
However, as readers dig deeper into the meaning of these lines, they realize that all the ‘rhymes’ that are suggested in the puzzle are actually ‘slant-’ or ‘half-rhymes’, which is a literary device that is used to signal disunity, lack of harmony, and imperfection.”
According to this perspective, the listener is supposed to get “depravement,” “engravement,” and “ailment” out of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th lines of the stanza, fulfilling the 1st line’s “request” for the listener to find words that rhyme with pavement.
While this thought process isn’t necessarily wrong, it is a little convoluted—and it’s indicative of a developing trend in how we treat songwriting on the whole. In 2025, Music IQ and comScore found that 94% of polled Gen-Z members said it was important for songs to have “meaningful lyrics” (2025 Genius Q2 Quarterly Report). It’s as if we’ve decided that lyrics that aren’t deep or clever don’t add to a song’s value—in fact, they actively detract from it. Consider the Swiftie, finding near-arbitrary connections between Taylor Swift songs in an attempt to prove that her new album’s lyrics are a work of literary genius.
I mean, maybe Taylor really was using the lyric “chasing shadows in the grocery line” in “Cardigan” to simultaneously comment on the public nature of her romantic relationships while also furthering a recurring motif throughout her whole discography—running into doppelgangers of her past lovers, as one user on Reddit wrote.
But is it really necessary to analyze the lyrics of a song to appreciate them? And do song lyrics really need a “deeper meaning” to be… good? I’m not saying that deep or profound lyrics aren’t a sign of a good song. But there are plenty of classic grooves that manage to be great without overly complex lyrics:
From “Eight Days a Week” by The Beatles:
Eight days a week
Eight days a week
I love you
(Sample from “Zilch” by the Monkees):
Mr. Dobalina, Mr. Bob Dobalina
Mr. Dobalina, Mr. Bob Dobalina
Mr. Dobalina, Mr. Bob Dobalina
Mr.-Mr. Dobalina, Mr. Bob Dobalina
From “Deceptacon” by Le Tigre:
Who took the bomp from the bompalompalomp?
Who took the ram from the ramalamadingdong?
Who took the bomp from the bompalompalomp?
Who took the ram from the ramalamadingdong?
From “Y.M.C.A.” by Village People:
It’s fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A.
It’s fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A.
It’s OK to like Taylor Swift—and it’s also OK for her lyrics to be more pop than prose. And while I’m not sure I buy into the explanation I read for Pavement’s “Harness Your Hopes,” I still like the song, regardless of whether the words have a hidden meaning behind them.
So the next time you listen to a song, pay attention to the lyrics: not necessarily because they’re deep or meaningful (even though they might be), but because they are fun, catchy, sound good, sound weird, have a cool rhythm, or make you want to dance. Words are just words, after all—it’s what you get out of them that matters.