A few years ago I stumbled upon the (largely) wordless world of post-rock. Initially, I didn’t know what to think. I worried that the lack of lyrics would prevent me from emotionally connecting to the music.

Call me lame, but at that point in time my musical tastes were still evolving. I gravitated towards slow songs with sad lyrics. I wasn’t necessarily sad and depressed, I just liked listening to other people who clearly were.

But you can’t be depressed forever. The same goes for music too. I had exhausted the catalogues of David Gray and Coldplay and needed something different.

I don’t remember the exact sequence of things, but I think I discovered Sigur Rós and Explosions In the Sky at around the same time. Both bands differed from everything in my music collection: Sigur Rós sang in a foreign/made-up language and Explosions In the Sky didn’t sing at all.

After a few listens, my initial concerns were put to rest. This was really good music. And with no lyrics to distract me, I could assign my own meaning to each song. For example, I’ve always pictured myself cruising down pristine slopes through epic powder while listening to “The Only Moment We Were Alone” by Explosions In the Sky.

Those of you who know that song may think I’m crazy, but that’s what I get from it.

And then there’s a song by The Album Leaf called “TwentyTwoFourteen” that perfectly fit one of my last drives through the mountains of Tahoe last winter. I think it’s the only track that I can link to an exact place and moment in time.

Now I’m not saying that songs with lyrics are bad. Good lyricists use words to paint blurry images that can be uniquely interpreted by the listener. I think everyone would put Bob Dylan in this category, though I think I’ll take a more modern example: Jim James of My Morning Jacket. Especially on the album At Dawn.

Writing this lengthy dissertation has made me realize something: when I listen to a song for the first time, I rarely hear the words. Instead, I focus on the instrumentation and overall mood of the song. For example, I didn’t realize that “The Monitor” by Bishop Allen was about the Civil War until several of my friends told me. I was focusing too much on that damn guitar part. Whether that’s good or bad is debatable…

I honestly don’t know what sparked this post. I just wanted to point out the fact that music doesn’t need lyrics to have impact. Then I planned to reinforce this observation by sharing a really good track by Mono called “Sabbath.” But somewhere in that process things went horribly awry.

• Mono – Sabbath