Lyrics as literature

The Sydney Morning Herald asks the musical question, Is "My Humps" poetic?

In the early '60s, the critic Paul Nelson, in his influential publication The Little Sandy Review, described [Bob] Dylan as ''the man who in every sense revolutionised modern poetry, American folk music, popular music and the whole of modern-day thought''. In 1967, Jack Newfield of The Village Voice praised the then 25-year-old Dylan for opening up ''new plateaus for poetic, content-conscious songwriters''. ''If Whitman were alive today,'' he wrote, ''he too would be playing an electric guitar.''

But those literary critiques were written about the music of three or four decades ago, when records came with printed lyric sheets and gatefold album sleeves inviting serious perusal and interpretation. What chance the serious lyrical statement in the artwork-free age of the digital download? My Humps. Who Let the Dogs Out? Do the words matter any more?