A bit like if someone you have a rather dim view of, say a politician etc appears to share your musical tastes; does it cloud your view of the music you like?

Most psychologists reckon it does, even of you don't admit it even to yourself.

Fascinating..

Any art in antiquity was produced by people with a very different moral compass to us. It is far easier to judge the product rather than factory that made it. Wagner and the Teutonic influence on the Nazi regime is mentioned in this thread. Many may have a dim view of freemasonry so that's Mozart up the spout. Elgar wrote stirring jingoism, so if you have any anti war and anti imperialism threads in your moral code, I doubt his "Glory, Pomp and Circumstance of Glorious War" should have you waving flags at Albert Hall....

On a more general basis, the songwriter may be using their own experience to write the song and might not. If they are, it helps you to understand where they are coming from if you know a bit about them perhaps.

Or it might just be that you like the noise it makes....