Lyrics are the words in a song, usually made up of verses and choruses. The person who writes lyrics is called a lyricist. For long musical works like operas, the words are called a "libretto," and the person who writes them is called a "librettist." Rap songs and grime include rap lyrics, which often use different rhyming patterns and are meant to be spoken in a rhythmic way instead of being sung. The meaning of lyrics can be clear or hidden. Some lyrics are hard to understand, and when this happens, their explanation focuses on form, how words are used, the rhythm, and the balanced way ideas are expressed.
Etymology
The word "lyric" comes from the Latin "lyricus," which is based on the Greek word "lurikós," meaning "of the lyre." The term first appeared in English in the mid-1500s when describing translations of poems by Petrarch and original sonnets by the Earl of Surrey. In ancient Greece, lyric poetry was sung with a lyre or cithara, unlike formal epics that were chanted or elegies that used a flute. The personal style of poems by the Nine Lyric Poets helped shape the modern meaning of "lyric poetry." However, the original Greek idea of "lyric poetry" referred to poems set to music, which later led to the use of the word "lyrics." This term first appeared in the 1876 "Dictionary of Musical Terms" by Stainer and Barrett, who defined "lyric" as "poetry or blank verse intended to be set to music and sung." By the 1930s, the plural form "lyrics" became common, and it has been widely used since the 1950s. The singular form "lyric" is still used by experts like Alec Wilder, Robert Gottlieb, and Stephen Sondheim to describe the full text of a song. It is also often used to refer to a single line or phrase within a song's lyrics.
Poems
When a poem is set to music, the differences between a poem and a song may become less clear, making it hard to tell them apart. This is seen in popular songs, which often include written words.
Sometimes, the words of a poem may come before the music is added, as with "Rule Britannia" or "And did those feet in ancient time," which later became the hymn "Jerusalem." Other times, the music may be forgotten, but the words remain and are paired with different tunes, especially in hymns and ballads.
Songs can be grouped into many categories, such as anthem, ballad, blues, carol, folk song, hymn, libretto, lied, lullaby, march, praise song, round, and spiritual. Nursery rhymes can be songs or simple, rhyming verses called doggerel. The term "doggerel" does not mean the same thing as a song. The ghazal is a type of song that is mainly considered a poem. Other related forms include rapping.
Similarly, verse drama is usually judged as poetry when it is well-written, but it is not made up of individual poems. This is known as dramatic verse.
In Baroque music, melodies and their lyrics were written in prose, not in paired lines. Instead, they used long sentences or paragraphs with three parts: an opening statement, a development (often with repeated musical patterns), and a closing section (ending with a musical pause). In German, these parts are called Vordersatz, Fortspinnung, and Epilog. An example might look like this:
Shifter
In the lyrics of popular songs, a "shifter" is a word, often a pronoun, that changes who or what it refers to depending on who is speaking, when, and where. Examples include words like "I," "you," "my," and "our." For instance, in the song "My Generation," who does the word "my" refer to?
Copyright and royalties
As of 2021, many websites provide song lyrics. However, this practice is controversial because some sites share lyrics that are protected by copyright without the permission of the copyright holder. In December 2005, the U.S. Music Publishers Association (MPA), which represents companies that sell sheet music, started a legal effort to stop these websites. MPA president Lauren Keiser stated that websites offering free lyrics without permission are "completely illegal" and expressed a desire for some website operators to be jailed.
Lyrics licenses can be obtained worldwide through two companies: LyricFind and Musixmatch. Yahoo! was the first company to provide licensed lyrics, followed quickly by MetroLyrics. Some websites, such as SongMeanings and LyricWiki (which was no longer active as of 2020), also offer licensed lyrics.
Many competing lyric websites still provide unlicensed content, creating challenges related to the legality and accuracy of the lyrics. To address this issue, a U.S. federal court ordered LiveUniverse, a network of websites operated by MySpace co-founder Brad Greenspan, to stop operating four sites that shared unlicensed song lyrics.
Academic study
Lyrics can be studied in an academic way. For example, some lyrics act as comments on society. They often include themes related to politics, social issues, and economics, as well as artistic elements. These messages can be clearly stated or suggested through symbols or metaphors. Lyrics can also be examined for how well they match the music they accompany. Looking at musical tone and differences between parts of a song are examples of this analysis. Christopher Ricks, a former Oxford Professor of Poetry, wrote a detailed book called Dylan's Visions of Sin, which analyzes the lyrics of Bob Dylan. He noted that studying the lyrics and music together would have made the analysis even more complex. A 2025 study examined over 20,000 lyrics from the US Top 100 songs. It found that stress-related words in lyrics increased over five decades, while positive feelings and the complexity of the lyrics decreased.
Search engines
A 2009 report from McAfee showed that searches for song lyrics and searches with the word "free" are more likely to lead to dangerous websites. This was true for both the average risk of all search results and the highest risk found in any single result.
In late 2014, Google started showing song lyrics on its search results pages. When people search for a song's name, the lyrics appear directly on the search results page. If someone looks for the lyrics to a specific song, most search results show the lyrics through Google Play.