Gifted persons and others interested in history and historical context may want to take a peek at the annual choice(s) for Word Of The Year, both starting now looking back, and continuing ongoing into the future. Word Of The Year may help provide a snapshot of zeitgeist, and lists of Word Of The Year viewed over time may indicate trends of social and cultural significance.
For example, Oxford's Word Of The Year for 2016 was "
post-truth," defined as
relating to circumstances in which people respond more to feelings and beliefs than to facts
Wikipedia has a crowd-sourced webpage dedicated to Word of The Year (WOTY),
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_of_the_year, including word lists.
As with understanding and interpreting song lyrics or visual art, it may be important to rely on the actual writer's or artist's statement, rather than to place too much importance on others' after-the-fact thoughts and reflections, which may imbue unintended meaning or perspective.
