Importance of Words to Music, a lyrical and melodic inquiry! Options

[trunks_girl26]

I resisted the urge to put this in Issues, even though it tends to be rather culturally relevant. Mods feel free to move this if they would like.

I just finished having a rather intense discussion with another forumite *cough*pwm*cough* which started as one about the limitations (or lack thereof) a choir has with music, as opposed to an orchestra and branched into one concerning the importance of words to music in general.

He tends to be of the opinion that words aren't as important as melody, while I feel that words can be as powerful, if not more, than the melody.

So, I put it to you, good Matazonians:

How important are words to music?
If words have no importance, would it be possible to take the same melody, put it to radically different phrases, and not not drastically change its meaning?
Does culture play a part in how important words are to music, if so how?

[Apollyon]

I tend to agree with PWM here.
To take the opposite of what you said, Daria, couldn't you take the same words and change the tone of the music behind them, therefore also radically changing the meaning? Both melody and lyrics are important parts of music, but without melody there can be no music, whereas there are as many songs with lyrics as without.