Prog often Plagued by Poor Lyrics?

Sounded to me like sarcasm that was trying to make a serious point beneath it - i.e., "your definition of prog is so strict that prog may as well not exist." Which is of course bullsh*t, because those three bands don't exhibit any of the qualities associated with prog, such as demanding or unconventional song structures. And no, Genesis and Yes could not similarly be reduced away, because they actually do have those qualities. 

Anyway, back to lyrics - it seems to me like you're just trying to arbitrarily what is or isn't emotional or "human" and box it in. Music is always going to be human, because as far as we know we're the only ones who can even appreciate it in the sense we think about it. So no, Close to the Edge isn't somehow less human, and many people do find it emotional. I'm tired of this mentality that "it's only human and emotional if it talks about a breakup, or some obvious feeling of sorrow or anger." The whole point of progressive music is to find new modes of expression. Why not have subject matter that's more removed from daily experience? Pop and alt rock seem to have solidified the notion that the pinnacle of human emotion is how a sixteen year old feels after getting dumped, and that anything that deviates from that deviates from being "emotional," which really means "music how I like it and f**k anyone trying to be different wink wink." Tired of the reactionary crap, tired of the chauvinism. Write lyrics about whatever you want. "Real music for real people, no prog allowed!" is crap. Real people listen to prog and actually enjoy its lyrics, imagine that. 

If you prefer lyrics that deal with your definition of human and emotional, there's music for you everywhere. At least let us have our little corner where we can do something else for once, because some people consider what you find emotional to be banal, and would not enjoy all music being confined to it.

What is prog? Doesn't that depend on your definition of the word? According to this site, Rush were heavy prog and MB were psychedelic crossover pop prog, and Styx were (prog related? I don't remember where the site has them). I could say Yes were hard rock, I could say Genesis were symphonic rock. I could say JT were just hard folk. 

At any rate, I thought Elf was being sarcastic.

No, Yes and Genesis were prog, and JT was for a few albums. Moody Blues were psychedelic pop, Rush was hard rock, Styx was arena rock/AOR.

...I still feel the music is more important than the lyrics anyway.  I don't think I have heard lyrics that have drastically changed my life.  

Just like the Kennedy assassination.

Rush and the Moody Blues aren't prog.

 

...is accompanied with a marvelous orchestral arrangement which mirrors the poem. It works wonderfully and is perhaps the high point of a superb album. As far as Tennyson, from a personal standpoint I find much of his work pompous and overblown, with an overwrought melancholy lifted directly from Keats. But then, Tennyson wasn't as bad as Longfellow or Wordsworth, who have been known to torture readers by the canto.