Filed under: iPod Family, How-tos, iTunes
HOWTO: Add lyrics to your iPod
Did you know you could view lyrics on your iPod? You can turn your iPod into a crude kind of sort-of-but-not-quite karaoke system by adding lyrics to your music and syncing those lyrics to your iPod. Both 5G and nano iPods allow you to view song lyrics as your music plays. Here are the steps to take to make this happen.Gallery: Adding Lyrics to iTunes
Google up some lyrics. The simplest way to find lyrics online is to google for them. Just be aware that certain lyrics sites contain malware. If Google warns you away from a particular site, you might consider taking its advise.
Paste the lyrics into iTunes. Select the song you want to add lyrics to in iTunes and choose File -> Get Info or Right-click (ctrl-click) Get Info. Select the Lyrics tab from the window that opens and paste the lyrics into the provided text field. Click OK to dismiss the window and save your lyrics.
Repeat. Add lyrics to as many songs as you want--just be aware that the process is a bit tedious so you might not want to do your entire library at once. (You might also want to check out the PearLyrics dashboard widget to automate the process.)
Sync. Connect your iPod to your computer and syncronize it to your iTunes library. The lyrics will sync along with your songs.
Play. After syncing and removing your iPod, select any song you've added lyrics to. To view the lyrics, press the Center ("OK") button to cycle between the normal playback screen ("Play status"), the playback scrubber, album art (if available for your track), the lyrics screen (if you've added lyrics), and the star rating for the track.
Take note. As this Apple support page points out, only some music file types (AAC and MP3) supports lyrics. Others (like WAV and QuickTime files) do not.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
justin said 3:10PM on 3-15-2007
I like using corripio (free) or mpfreaker ($20) for lyrics/art/tags. really helpful compared to copying and pasting.
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Word Diggity said 3:23PM on 3-15-2007
That's an interesting track naming system you've got there. Do you just do that on the iPod, or is your whole iTunes library set up that way?
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Ben Lawson said 3:37PM on 3-15-2007
Install the PearLyrics widget and get lyrics auto-magically as iTunes plays songs...
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Josh Invert said 3:44PM on 3-15-2007
I just use the free Harmonic widget:
http://www.mindquirk.com/widgets/harmonic/index.htm
If the dashboard's active it automatically fetches lyrics for the song you're listening to, displays them in the dashboard, and saves the lyrics to your iPod when you sync.
It also has a handy "Google for Lyrics" button, just in case it can't find the lyrics for you.
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Paul said 4:34PM on 3-15-2007
The best solution I found is Needle Drop in Doug's Applescripts and then the pearllyrics widget. You set Needle Drop to a 10 second preview of each song and then pearl will add the lyrics automatically. It's about 99% accurate and a great way to add lyrics to your entire music collection while you sleep :)
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Freeze said 4:43PM on 3-15-2007
I'm the same as Ben, I use the pearLyrics widget. Too bad the music companies dumped on him, I would love an intel version.
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Tre said 4:56PM on 3-15-2007
Can anyone comment on how this affects the size of the song? Appox. how much space would this eat up on the iPod for a whole music library?
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Word Diggity said 5:32PM on 3-15-2007
I can't imagine the lyrics would take up a LOT of space, not like album artwork.
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Dan said 5:37PM on 3-15-2007
and also there's a nice lyric widget that finds the current lyrics to the current itunes song.
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/music/singthatitune.html
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Kale Langley said 5:51PM on 3-15-2007
You can use pear lyrics as an app too. I made a playlist in tunes with all my music on it, then started pearlyrics, then told pearlyrics to find lyrics for that playlist under the "Go" in the title bar. It was done in like 20 minutes for about 2,300 songs.
here's the link: http://www.macparc.ch/mirror/pearLyrics/
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rahul said 6:35PM on 3-15-2007
Is there a way to put lyrics on a 4th gen iPod?
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Ben Strothmann said 6:36PM on 3-15-2007
So this nly works on Nano and 5GB models?
What about my black, 60GB Video iPod? 5th Generation.
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Jane LM said 6:46PM on 3-15-2007
According to the website your link heads towards, PearLyrics has not been available for a year due to copyright fights. Any suggestions of other ways to get it, or something similar?
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Galley said 7:16PM on 3-15-2007
Just wait until iTunes 8 supports legal lyrics downloads from GraceNote.
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andrew harrison said 7:16PM on 3-15-2007
I use Harmonic, a widget that automagically finds the lyrics and adds them to the lyrics field in iTunes.
They don't show up on my 4G iPod, but I figure it can't hurt to be prepared for my next one :)
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andrew harrison said 7:16PM on 3-15-2007
I use Harmonic, a widget that automagically finds the lyrics and adds them to the lyrics field in iTunes.
They don't show up on my 4G iPod, but I figure it can't hurt to be prepared for my next one :)
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vistet said 5:25AM on 3-16-2007
I could get somewhat excited over this , as a language aid. Paste the text & translation of the phrases in to iTunes , and you could run it from the display and/or mini speakers when everything else has failed.
Anyone know what languages can be displayed on iPod ? Dare I say ..Unicode support ?
At the moment I´m pouring in bits and pieces from a [url=http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/P/1559390980.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg]conversation course[/url] in to my Shuffle , which also works great for me : learning without any performance angst.
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Christi said 6:03AM on 3-16-2007
I’ve had unicode characters in the song titles and artist fields so I don’t see why the lyrics field wouldn’t support them also.
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Max said 1:39PM on 3-17-2007
You can view lyrics on your 4g iPod. I have a widget called sing that iTune.
It puts all of your lyrics as text files into a folder in your documents. They are arranged by Artist Name and Album. Then you just copy this to the notes folder on your iPOd. I used to use it on my mini. It even puts a play this song link in. Not as stylish, but quite good.
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Simply Listen said 6:36AM on 4-11-2007
Over 5,000 audio books on this site easy to download audiobooks on cd, mp3 or your ipod. From self help, childrens, drama, thrillers, biographys, best sellers and many more.
http://www.simplylisten.com
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