You've written lyrics you can't wait to share.
Display your song's TRUE meaning with correct punctuation.
You've written lyrics you can't wait to share.
Display your song's TRUE meaning with correct punctuation.
Display your song's TRUE meaning with correct punctuation.
Display your song's TRUE meaning with correct punctuation.
Why do you need LyricSmart?
Before you share your beautiful words, make sure you have marked them with the correct punctuation; otherwise, your lyrics stand a big chance of being misunderstood by music publishers and singers who want to properly interpret your song.
I'm Janet Walker, a writer who lives in Atlanta, Georgia. I have published novels and written a few songs, and I am the author of a trucker’s guide that is a best-seller on Amazon.com.
Most importantly, I am a university-trained lover of grammar. Allow me to use my grammar skills to add punctuation to your lyrics!
...highly educated and brilliant. But I know, from working as an editor, that unless my client has a Ph.D. in grammar, he WILL make mistakes with punctuation. There are simply too many rules in English grammar (more than 3,000), many of them governing the proper placement of basic punctuation marks.
There is an egregious punctuation error in the letter salutation above. Did you spot it? If not, don't feel bad; it has become one of the most common errors in writing today. But that makes it no less wrong.
A basic rule of grammar states that if you greet a person or an entity, you use a comma to separate your greeting ("Hi") from the person or entity you are greeting ("Jack"). This is because your actual sentence is "Hi." The name "Jack" is the target or recipient of the sentence.
Hence, the above greeting should look like this: "Hi, Jack! How are you?"
To be grammatically correct, it only needed ONE mark: a comma.
Without the comma, you are actually NOT greeting someone named Jack but are announcing the takeover of an airplane by unauthorized individuals! ("This is a hijack!")
Lyricists are poets, yes, and sometimes they deliberately break rules of grammar to deliver a certain effect. THAT IS TOTALLY FINE.
But there is a difference between breaking rules for "artistic" purposes...and breaking them because you don't know them in the first place.
Some of us can tell the difference.
Well, first, you don’t have to worry that I will change your lyrics: I DON'T CHANGE YOUR WORDS INTO OTHER WORDS. I’m interested in the marks that go before, after, and sometimes inside your words.
For that reason, I only apply basic punctuation marks—and capitalization and lowercasing of letters—that are needed to make sure singers and listeners understand the message you want your words to deliver.
And that’s the point: Your song has a definite meaning. Your lyrics have a certain message. You want to make sure you convey that message even if, after you deliver it, your listener or singer interprets the words in another way. That won't erase the fact that you, the writer, had a definite meaning in mind when you penned the lyrics.
Allow me to help you protect and project your meaning.
Usher’s “You Remind Me”
Without LyricSmart:
See the thing about you that caught my eye
Is the same thing that makes me change my mind
With LyricSmart:
See, the thing about you that caught my eye
is the same thing that makes me change my mind.
Without the comma behind “see,” the narrator is ordering you to look at something, as in, “See that bird over there!” That’s not how “see” is being used in these lyrics. Another point: Because the second line is a continuation of the opening sentence, its first letter, “I,” should not be capitalized. Finally, the two lines form one sentence, a declarative statement, which means we end it with a period.
Without LyricSmart:
Well I was born a coal miners daughter
In a cabin on a hill in Butcher Holler
We were poor but we had love
That’s the one thing
That daddy made sure of
He shoveled coal to make
A poor man’s dollar
To see just how incorrect the above lack of punctuation is, look at how the words look when we stretch them into regular prose structure:
Well I was born a coal miners daughter In a cabin on a hill in Butcher Holler We were poor but we had love That’s the one thing That daddy made sure of He shoveled coal to make A poor man’s dollar
Obviously wrong! Right? So, with LyricSmart, you apply the punctuation below (which the songwriter probably did but that a particular website administrator did not). And, then, the lines above become the lyrics below:
Well, I was born a coal miner’s daughter
in a cabin on a hill in Butcher Holler.
We were poor, but we had love.
That’s the one thing
that daddy made sure of.
He shoveled coal to make
a poor man’s dollar.
Remember: A song tells a story just as much as a storybook tale tells a story. Both should be punctuated—except in cases when a writer knowingly and skillfully breaks the rules for literary or musical purposes. In those cases, I won’t touch your punctuation—or undo the lack of it.
“Open Arms” by Journey
Without LyricSmart:
Lying beside you
Here in the dark
Feeling your heartbeat with mine
Softly, you whisper
You’re so sincere
How could our love be so blind?
With LyricSmart:
Lying beside you
here in the dark,
feeling your heart beat with mine.
Softly, you whisper.
You’re so sincere.
How could our love be so blind?
Sentences need periods and commas; "Here” should not be capitalized; and if the songwriter meant that her heart is beating along with his, then, the phrase should be two words, “heart beat.” However, I applaud the website for one thing: Just as in any sentence, you should use a question mark if you ask a question in your lyrics.
Without LyricSmart:
Baby love my baby love
I need you oh how I need you
With LyricSmart:
Baby love, my baby love,
I need you. Oh, how I need you.
I would have added an exclamation point to the last sentence, expressing the passion as, "Oh, how I need you!" I don't know whether the songwriters did that, but I would have if I had written the song. And, by the way, "Baby Love" is my favorite song. Yes, I know, beating anything produced by Bach, Sarah Vaughan, Whitney Houston, Streisand, Kathleen Battle—I know. But I absolutely love what Flo, Diana, and Mary, and Holland-Dozier-Holland, gave us with this tune.
Remember: A song is a work of art—poetry, whether spoken or written—and should appeal to the ear and to the eye. To see an example of simple lyrics with poetic, clean punctuation, click here.
Finally, enjoy a video (below) that presents lyrics I composed about opera star Kathleen Battle. As you watch, notice that, at one point, the lyrics are “stylish, graceful, maestro’s dream.” The song is naming three attributes of the song’s title character. She is stylish and graceful, and she is a maestro’s dream (because of her voice). For that reason, I applied the second comma.
Use the email provided below. Send me your lyrics.
Then, click the button to submit payment.
I will get your lyrics back to you within 48 hours.
If you see that I applied a mark that misrepresents your song's meaning, let me know.
I will gladly make the changes you want.
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