Add and view lyrics to iTunes songs

iTunes is a great media player and library, but there are still things in which it is below other players like Amarok on Linux, which has a section of lyrics that we can consult at any time. The Apple player allows us to save the lyrics of the song but it does not have a quick command to access it or an easy way to get them all (or a group of them) in a moment.

Long ago I spent the day looking for letters. My usual method was to search the internet «name of the song + lyrics »to be able to read it, but some time ago I came up with a solution that, joining an application and a widget for the Dashboard, they will allow us to read all the songs we want.

The first thing we will use is a widget for the Dasboard called TunesTEXT. It is discontinued but it serves us perfectly to visualize the letters. Being a widget we will always have it ready in the Dashboard. You have the ability to search for the lyrics and add them to iTunes, but since it is discontinued, this feature leaves a bit to be desired. What we want with TunesTEXT is have the lyrics of a song available with just the gesture of the 4 fingers right on the Trackpad (or by pressing F4).

The following application is the most important: Get Lyrical. This application, free that accepts donations, will allow us download the lyrics of our songs  y add them to the song metadata which will later be available on iTunes.

Get Lyrical is a very easy to use application. Once downloaded and installed, we will only have to select one or more songs from iTunes y click on «label selection« so that we can obtain the letters that are selected, «label current« to get the lyrics of the song that is currently playing or leave the option checked «active tagging« so that you get the lyrics of all the songs that sound (and are available, of course).

Get Lyrical also offers us the possibility to see the lyrics from the same application. To do this we will only have to click on the eye that we can see next to the largest button that says "label current" or "label selection" (there is a difference: "selection" is the one we have highlighted in blue and "current" is the song that is playing). The lyrics are also available in your iTunes information (cmd + i about a song, tab letters). But of all the options, as I have commented before, I prefer to use the TunesTEXT widget. The reason, and it is personal, is that I have a trackpad and can access it with a gesture. In the following images we can see how the lyrics look from the Get Lyrical application (left) and a TunesTEXT window in the Dashboard (right).

Obviously, some songs may have the wrong title or it may happen that the lyrics of a song cannot be found. At that time, you have to use the old method: search for the lyrics on the internet, press cmd + i on top of a song and put the lyrics manually.

As you can see in the image that follows, the lyrics of the songs will also appear in the Music application of our iPhone.

Download Get Lyrical.

Download TunesTEXT.