Strange hearing problem: Does anyone have trouble recognizing words?

I have ears like a safe-cracker; I'm 35 years old but in my last test at work my hearing tests as being equivalent to that of a young teenager.

The problem is that I sometimes have difficulty recognizing words - especially in songs. I might listen to a track 20 times but unless I read the lyrics first about half of the words are a garble.

Sounds like you have auditory processing issues. You don't just hear with your ears, the information you hear at your ears is broken down at various stops in your brain which allows you to understand speech, music, etc.

Some people just have a more difficult time understanding things like music or movies than others. I have normal hearing also, and once I'm in a noisy situation or when I watch a movie with lots of noise I have a terrible time.

Also, keep in mind that music is a very complicated signal. You're not the only one who has no idea what the heck is being said.

that always happens in songs, because they are singing and not enouncinating the words

This happened to my friend after he got menengitus and has been partially deaf ever since. Your case however doesn't sound as worrying but you should get it checked out by your doctor.
It might be nothing to worry about!

If it's just songs, I wouldn't worry. They're often hard to understand. But if you find that this is happening in everyday converstaion or when watching tv, and you're sure it's not your ears, that means it's an auditory processing problem in your brain. This can be the result of an infection, or can be due to other problems in the brain, some serious, some less so. See your doctor and ask for a referral to a neurologist. They can do tests to narrow down the problem, and find out if you have something to worry about or not.

Is it possible at all that your native language isn't English? I am 19 and Russian, and even though I have absolutely no accent, excel in literature classes, and haven't had anyone notice I'm not American (unless I tell them my full name, lol), I have the same problem as you do. Sometimes I can't understand a line in a song. I even try to listen to it over and over and disect it bit by bit, but it still makes no sense to me. Then, I read the lyrics and get that, "Doh!" feeling. Personally, I attribute this to being a non-native speaker.

However, maybe I am wrong altogether! Alot of these modern artists come from nations with a different accent of English (England, or parts of the Carribean islands) and therefore you try to interpret what they are singing based on your own understanding of what the language sounds like, but since they are singing in an "off-tuned" accent from what you are used to, their words may fly right over your head. I think might be a problem even if the singer is American, but from a different part of the country... Even though you might not thing that matters much, I bet when they are singing (which sounds different and is usually at a different frequency than regular speech), it can make a world of difference.

Lastly, be attuned to the latest slang, or word mingling. You probably don't listen to hip-hop, but even non-rap R&B will have artists make up words, combine words, make up new phrases, or take regular words and purposely pronounce it differently or put stress syllables where they should not be, making the word sound "off", like saying "paPER" instead of "PAper", etc.

So, I have the same problem as you, and those are my theories. I am sorry I cannot provide a definite answer to you, and I'll be reading other responses to answer this for myself!