Getting Your Lyrics on Spotify and Apple Music: A Step-by-Step Guide for Independent Artists
Lyrics on streaming services are easy to overlook. Your song is live, the cover looks right, and the lyrics panel is empty or, worse, wrong. Getting them on is free on both major services, and it means listeners can follow along, quote the right words and find the song again later. Here is how each service says it works.
Spotify: lyrics come through Musixmatch
Spotify's help page says Musixmatch provides licensed and synced lyrics for Spotify, and that getting verified on Musixmatch lets you add, edit and sync your lyrics on Spotify for free.
The steps, as Spotify lists them:
- Create a Musixmatch Pro account. Spotify notes the free plan is all you need, and that it sits below the paid options on the sign-up page. Using an email address linked to your artist, label or management company can speed up verification.
- Verify your artist profile. In Musixmatch Pro, go to Roster, choose Add artist, paste your Spotify artist URL and fill in the required fields. Spotify says Musixmatch reviews submissions and replies by email within a few business days.
- Add or edit lyrics. Pick a song from your roster and choose Lyrics. If a song is missing, you can add the release manually, which Spotify says can take up to 48 hours to appear. After you send, changes may take a few days to show on Spotify.
- Sync them. You can upload audio or, if you have linked a Spotify Premium account, Musixmatch fetches the audio for you, so listeners can follow along in real time.
Spotify's formatting tips: transcribe the lyrics in full, including repeated words, lines and sections; do not use multipliers like "x2"; transcribe only the lyrical audio; label sections with tags such as #VERSE and #CHORUS; and write lyrics in their native script.
Apple Music: submit directly in Apple Music for Artists
Apple's help page describes a direct route:
- In Apple Music for Artists, go to Artist Content and select a song. Songs without lyrics show a plus button.
- Click Add Lyrics and paste your formatted lyrics.
- To fix existing lyrics, go to the song's Lyrics section and choose Request a Change, describe what is wrong and provide the corrected text.
Apple adds that it offers machine-assisted translation and pronunciation for select songs, and that submitting static lyrics in the song's original language gives the best chance of this appearing, though it is not guaranteed. The same page explains that lyrics rights for Apple Music are granted through Music Reports, so if you control your publishing, read that section.
Apple's formatting rules are strict, so read them first
Apple's lyrics guidelines say the lyrics must match the audio. Among the rules:
- Separate sections with line breaks, using a double space between stanzas.
- Start every line with a capital letter and follow normal grammar for proper nouns.
- No periods or commas at the end of lines. Question marks, exclamation points and quotation marks are allowed.
- Write out repeated lines in full rather than writing "(Repeat x3)."
- Put background vocals in parentheses at the end of a line.
- Do not transcribe spoken-word sections, improvised scatting or computer-generated sound effects.
- Use "clean" only if an explicit version exists, and replace censored words with asterisks.
A quick routine for every release
- Write a master lyric file as soon as the song is final, in the stricter Apple format. It will also satisfy Spotify's tips.
- Have someone else check it against the audio.
- Submit on both services once the release is live.
- Check the lyrics panel on your phone a few days later.
Lyrics are one small step in a release. For the wider plan around it, see Virtual Publicist's guide to promoting your music.