Lyrics and timed lyrics
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Lyrics belong to a recording, so they follow it onto every release it's on.
Opening the editor
Open Lyrics in the sidebar. Filter by No lyrics, Draft or Ready, or search by title, artist, ISRC or a line of the lyrics. Click a recording to open the editor.
You can also click Add lyrics or Edit lyrics on a track in the release's Tracks tab.
Owners, admins and members can edit lyrics.
Writing lyrics
Type or paste the lyrics, one line per line. To bring in a file, click Import. It accepts TTML, LRC, SRT, VTT and plain text.
Your changes save automatically. If someone else changes the lyrics at the same time, you see a message and can click Reload the latest. Nothing is overwritten.
Click History to see earlier versions. Restoring one makes it a new draft, so nothing is lost.
Timing lyrics
Timing is optional. Lyrics with no timing at all are fine.
- Choose Line or Word.
- Play the track. Press Stamp line (or Enter) as each line starts, and again as it ends.
- In Word mode, press Stamp word at each word.
- Use the Refine tab to fine-tune. Drag a region to move a line, or drag its edges to change its start or end.
The counter shows how many lines are timed. To start again, click Clear timings.
Explicit words
The side panel lists words that stores treat as explicit, and words to double-check. If a track's lyrics contain an explicit word, mark the track Explicit. For a clean version, clean up the lyrics too. Otherwise you can't submit the release.
Marking lyrics ready
Click Mark ready when you're done. Composer checks the lyrics first, for example:
- Every line has text.
- Either every line is timed, or none are.
- Times are in order and within the length of the track.
Fix anything listed, then try again.
If you edit the lyrics after marking them ready, they go back to Draft. Mark them ready again when you're done. To make changes on purpose, click Back to draft.
Where your lyrics go
Lyrics marked ready are sent to stores with the release. For now stores get them as plain text; synced (timed) lyrics for stores beyond Apple Music are coming soon. Timing your lyrics now means they're ready when that happens.