Did you ever find that learning the words to songs seems to slow the whole fucking world down?

I don't seem to lose myself as much in the passages when I'm singing along

Yes, definitely. Looking up the lyrics online doesnt count however. I always find it rewarding to rewind a song about 1000 times in the car until you've memorized the lyrics (best with a cassette, but CD allowed). Some songs I remember doing this for as a young 'un: Neil Young's Thrasher, Dylan's Idiot Wind, The Church's Lost. Most recently: Conor Oberst's Cape Canaveral.

Have you also noticed that if you cant make out a lyric, this process of rewinding over and over again never clarifies. It is only when your mind is on a competely different topic, that your mind can passively parse the cryptic sounds into syntactically correct language nuggets.

it's funny, because these days I so seldom ever remember the lyrics to songs - LCD Soundsystem's Losing My Edge is one of the few exceptions - but anytime any one of hundreds of songs come on from my youth, amazingly I can jump right in word for word. Memory is a cruel mistress.