Sometimes it’s nice to have the lyrics of a song, perhaps it’s a particularly soppy romantic song you want to get all teared up over or just a rocking 80s tunes you want to sing along to. This article will show you how to get the lyrics to any song for free and automagically add them to your iTunes Library one song, album or entire library at a time.
LyricWiki – the Wikipedia of song lyrics
Let’s start with LyricWiki, a huge free online database of lyrics. They are a free site that contains reliable lyrics for any song or artist without annoying popups or invasive ads. They have 868,787 pages on their site. You can search their site via a form on the homepage. Once you have the lyrics you can cut and paste them into a song in iTunes. Once the lyrics have been cut, go to the song you want in iTunes and click on FILE > GET INFO then you can click on the Lyrics tab and paste them into the blank area in this window and click OK. This is fine for the occasional song but if you want to do an entire album or your entire Library then you’ll need to a computer program to help you.
Tune Up
Mid 2009 a couple of great free programs for the mac existed that accessed the LyricsWiki database BUT as of late 2009 these programs have been shut out of LyricsWIki due to licensing issues with music publishers. There is currently NO program that will automatically add lyrics to all your tracks on the Mac.
There is one programs that fill fix everything else, track names, cover art automatically- Tune Up. There is a pay and free version. The free version is limited to 100 songs but give it a twirl and the $29 lifetime license may be worth it for die hard music fans. The promo video below shows it in action and they mention that they will be adding the lyrics feature in the future 🙂
You get get the programs here http://www.tuneupmedia.com/
iTunesLyricsLocator
Sorry but it looks like this program is no longer available due to licensing issues 🙁 so you’ll have to add you lyrics manually!!!
Dear LyricWiki API Developers,
It has been a great run, and I have seen some fantastic and
interesting applications come from all of your skills and hard work.
Unfortunately, licensing agreements with the biggest publishers in the
music industry require us to no longer offer the ability for
programmatic access to LyricWiki’s collection of lyrics.
We tried to arrange some way to let API Developers license through us,
but this was not possible.
While this is not something we are happy about, it is a necessity in
order to finally secure licensing for LyricWiki from the major
publishers which will allow the project to survive indefinitely.
== What can the API do now? ==
Everything it used to be able to do except for display lyrics. This
amounts to primarily two things: viewing discographies and matching a
single song to a corresponding LyricWiki URL so that users can be
linked to it.
iTunesLyricsLocator is a FREE Java program (so it’ll work on Mac’s and PC’s) that will download and update your iTunes Music Library with all the lyrics to all of your favorite songs. It can update your entire iTunes music library, or if you create a specific Playlist called “No Lyrics” it will update that playlist instead. This nifty little program can be downloaded from a link on this page. Once downloaded launch the application and a window will appear. At the bottom left of the window is a button marked “Process”. Clicking this button will start the program and if you have not created a playlist called “No Lyrics” it will attempt to update ALL the songs in your library so be aware this may take quite some time.
More detailed instructions – provide by the developer
Prerequisites
=============
Java 1.5+
iTunes 7+
Mac OS X 10.4 / 10.5
Windows XP / Vista / Windows 7 (experimental)
Operation / How To Use
======================
Extract the zip file with winzip, winrar or stuff-it expander. Open the folder, and browse to the program directory
To install:
(Windows)
Copy the iTunesLyricsLocator program directory into C:\Program Files and create a shortcut on your desktop (or your Start Menu) to iTunesLyricsLocator.exe.
(Mac OS X)
Copy the application object to your Applications directory.
Before starting the program:
(Mac OS X & Windows)
OPTIONAL: Create "No Lyrics" playlist, and add songs to it.
To run the program:
(Windows)
Double-click iTunesLyricsLocator.exe and click Process button when ready.
(Mac OS X)
Double-Click iTunesLyricsLocator application (Universal) and click Process button when ready.
("No Lyrics" Mode)
Create an iTunes playlist called "No Lyrics" and the application will update that
entire iTunes library. It can also be a Smart Playlist based on some arbitrary criteria. For large music collections (10,000+) you will need to wait a few minutes for the job to complete.
Hope you find this useful and leave your comments below.