Dear davembandfan,
Your first resort should be to enter part of the lyrics into a standard
web search engine. I recommend that you enter one line at a time,
beginning with the refrain (also known as the chorus) and, if that fails,
proceeding to the first verse of the song. Furthermore, you should
enclose the entire line in quotation marks in order to indicate that
you're seeking all the words next to each other in that sequence. This
will typically yield much better results, especially if the words in
the lyrics are fairly common ones.
Suppose, for example, that I heard a song on the radio with the refrain
"And what you lost, and what you had, and what you lost". If I search
on a leading web index using the words alone, the sequence is lost
and most of the query terms are thrown out as stopwords, leaving me
with various web pages that happen to contain "you", "had", and "lost"
in some order. The only lyrics that turn up on the first page are from
an Eve song whose title and refrain resemble but do not quite match the
refrain I have in mind.
search: and what you lost and what you had and what you lost
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=and+what+you+lost+and+what+you+had+and+what+you+lost
By enclosing the refrain in quotation marks, however, I obtain an exact
match in the top half-dozen results to the song Dreams by Fleetwood Mac.
search "and what you lost and what you had and what you lost"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=%22and+what+you+lost+and+what+you+had+and+what+you+lost%22
GetLyrical: Fleetwood Mac: Dreams
http://www.getlyrical.com/lyrics.html?Type=Song&Id=15138
If these tactics fail, the next step is to turn to a specialized lyric
index. Many of these sites exist in a legal grey zone because they contain
copyrighted lyrics without permission of the copyright owner, and despite
the fact that they are not selling or performing the lyrics themselves,
it is often the case that the lyrics are being published on pages that
attempt to turn a profit by exposing the user to banner ads, pop-ups,
and other commercial content. I urge you to steer clear of any legal
risk. Do not copy any lyrics from such sites, and do not even use them if
your intention is to view lyrics for songs that you have not purchased
or heard on the radio with your own ears. You should not participate in
any way, even as a consumer, in the dissemination of copyrighted works
without permission of the copyright owner.
However, there is nothing morally wrong with writing down the lyrics
for a song you have heard if you propose to use said lyrics for your
personal convenience alone. Furthermore, I don't see why you shouldn't
subsequently conduct a search on a lyric index to identify the artist
and track title of the song. If you already have a personal copy of the
lyrics thanks to your own transcription effort, you are not making any
illicit gains by viewing the same lyrics from another source. This is
merely my personal opinion. For legal advice, you should turn to a lawyer.
Below are the best lyric sites that I was able to locate with the help
of a leading web search engine. I have excluded those that permit you to
search only on the basis of the artist or track title, which is actually
what most lyric sites do. Such sites are useless in your situation. I
confirmed that the following sites work reasonably well by testing them
with various lyrics from memory. The results are surprising; Lycos Music
Search, for example, which you would expect to be rather good judging
from their vast corporate resources, does a terrible job of searching for
lyrics. Other, more obscure sites do much better. Their coverage is broad
though not unlimited. When you search by lyric on one of these sites,
don't include quotation marks! That is only recommended for web-index
searching. Quotation marks will confuse most lyric search engines.
GetLyrical [use "Find by Lyric" button]
http://www.getlyrical.com/
SongLyrics [use "within lyric text" search box, selecting "phrase"]
http://www.songlyrics.com/
LetsSingIt [select "lyrics" item from menu beside search box]
http://www.letssingit.com/
PureLyrics: Advanced Search [use "Phrase from song" search box"]
http://www.purelyrics.com/index.php?advsearch=1&e=1
eLyrics [select "Text in Song" item from menu beside search box]
http://www.elyrics.net/
I have enjoyed addressing this question on your behalf. Should you feel
that any part of my answer is unclear or incorrect, or if you need
further help identifying the artist and track title of your specific
lyrics, don't hesitate to let me know with a Clarification Request so
that I can fully meet your needs.
Regards,
leapinglizard
Search Queries:
lyric search
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=lyric+search
song lyrics
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=song+lyrics
lyric archive
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=lyric+archive
lyrics
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=lyrics |
