Lyrics are that make up a song, usually consisting of verses and Refrain. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist. The words to an extended musical composition such as an opera are, however, usually known as a "libretto" and their writer, as a "librettist". and grime music contain rap lyrics (often with a variation of rhyming words) that are meant to be rapping rather than sung. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes Musical form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of expression.
Etymology
The word
lyric derives via
Latin from the Ancient Greek (),
the adjectival form of
lyre.
[Liddell, Henry & al. A Greek–English Lexicon 9th ed., " λυρικός". Clarendon Press (Oxford), 1996. Hosted at the Perseus Project. Accessed 15 Jan 2014.] It first appeared in English in the mid-16th century in reference to the Earl of Surrey's translations of
Petrarch and to his own
.
[Sidney, Philip. An Apologie for Poetrie op. cit. OED (1903).] Greek lyric had been defined by the manner in which it was sung accompanied by the
lyre or
cithara,
[Miller, Andrew. Greek Lyric: An Anthology in Translation, pp. xii ff. Hackett Publishing (Indianapolis), 1996. .] as opposed to the chanted formal epics or the more passionate elegies accompanied by the
aulos. The personal nature of many of the verses of the Nine Lyric Poets led to the present sense of "
lyric poetry" but the original Greek sense of "lyric poetry""poetry accompanied by the lyre" i.e. "words set to music"eventually led to its use as "lyrics", first attested in Stainer and Barrett's 1876
Dictionary of Musical Terms.
[Stainer, John & al. A Dictionary of Musical Terms, p. 276. (London), 1876.] Stainer and Barrett used the word as a singular substantive: "
Lyric, poetry or blank verse intended to be set to music and sung". By the 1930s, the present use of the
plurale tantum "lyrics" had begun; it has been standard since the 1950s for many writers.
[ The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song by authorities such as Alec Wilder,]
Poems
The differences between poem and song may become less meaningful where verse is set to music, to the point that any distinction becomes untenable. This is perhaps recognised in the way popular songs have lyrics.
However, the verse may pre-date its Melody (in the way that "Rule Britannia" was set to music, and "And did those feet in ancient time" has become the hymn "Jerusalem"), or the tune may be lost over time but the words survive, matched by a number of different tunes (this is particularly common with and ).
Possible classifications proliferate (under anthem, ballad, blues, carol, folk song, hymn, libretto, lied, lullaby, march, praise song, round, spiritual). Nursery rhymes may be songs, or doggerel: the term does not imply a distinction. The ghazal is a sung form that is considered primarily poetic. See also rapping, roots of hip hop music.
Analogously, verse drama might normally be judged (at its best) as poetry, but not consisting of poems (see dramatic verse).
In Baroque music, melodies and their lyrics were prose. Rather than paired lines they consist of rhetorical sentences or paragraphs consisting of an opening gesture, an amplification (often featuring sequence), and a close (featuring a cadence); in German Vordersatz- Fortspinnung- Epilog.[Kelly, Thomas Forest (2011). Early Music: A Very Short Introduction, p.53. .] For example:
''When I was a child,'' [opening gesture]
''I spoke as a child,'' [amplification...]
''I understood as a child,'' [...]
''I thought as a child;'' [...]
''But when I became a man, I put away childish things.'' [close]
''- 1 Corinthians 13:11''
Shifter
In the lyrics of popular music a "shifter"[Durant (1984). Cited in Middleton, Richard (1990/2002). Studying Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open University Press. .] is a word, often a pronoun, "where reference varies according to who is speaking, when and where",[Middleton (1990), p.167.] such as "I", "you", "my", "our". For example, who is the "my" of "My Generation"?
Copyright and royalties
- See Royalties
, there are many websites featuring song lyrics. This offering, however, is controversial, since some sites include copyrighted lyrics offered without the holder's permission. The U.S. Music Publishers Association (MPA), which represents sheet music companies, launched a legal campaign against such websites in December 2005. The MPA's president, Lauren Keiser, said the free lyrics web sites are "completely illegal" and wanted some website operators jailed.
Lyrics licenses could be obtained worldwide through one of the two aggregators: LyricFind and Musixmatch. The first company to provide licensed lyrics was Yahoo!, quickly followed by MetroLyrics. Several lyric websites are providing licensed lyrics, such as SongMeanings
Many competing lyrics web sites are still offering unlicensed content, causing challenges around the legality and accuracy of lyrics.
Academic study
Lyrics can be studied from an academic perspective. For example, some lyrics can be considered a form of social commentary. Lyrics often contain political, social, and economic themes—as well as aesthetic elements—and so can communicate culturally significant messages. These messages can be explicit, or implied through metaphor or symbolism. Lyrics can also be analyzed with respect to the sense of unity (or lack of unity) it has with its supporting music. Analysis based on tonality and contrast are particular examples. Former Oxford Professor of Poetry Christopher Ricks famously published Dylan's Visions of Sin, an in-depth and characteristically Ricksian analysis of the lyrics of Bob Dylan; Ricks gives the caveat that to have studied the poetry of the lyrics in tandem with the music would have made for a much more complicated critical feat.
A 2025 study, which analyzed over 20,000 lyrics of songs in the US Top 100 charts, found a "significant increase in stress-related language, alongside declines in positive sentiment and lyrical complexity over five decades."
Search engines
Search risk
A 2009 report published by McAfee found that, in terms of potential exposure to malware, lyrics-related searches and searches containing the word "free" are the most likely to have risky results from search engines, both in terms of average risk of all results, and maximum risk of any result.
Google
Beginning in late 2014, Google changed its search results pages to include song lyrics. When users search for a name of a song, Google can now display the lyrics directly in the search results page.
See also
Further reading
External links
