New Mac & iCloud questions

[Chris Cook5]

when you receive a text why is it more often than not it is delayed getting to mac?

how do you permanently delete songs off of iTunes versus hiding them

what is the the cloud Icon in the upper right-hand corner of the album for if you can play the songs without downloading them from iCloud

 

[Ledsteplin]

Can't answer first question. I don't have a Mac.
If you refer to purchased songs, you can't delete them permanently. They remain in the purchased list just as apps do in the App Store.
The cloud is to download the songs to offline, rather than online using data. The trade off is that offline takes storage space on the device.