Spotify is great, we all love to listen to our favorite artists, discover new music, connect with your friends, make your own playlists and even read the lyrics of your favorite songs, however, sometimes you may not be able to enjoy this feature for a number of reasons, whether it’s because of an issue with the app or some other problem.
Sometimes you may find that the lyrics aren’t showing properly, others you will find the lyrics for some songs but others won’t show anything, and in the worst case scenario, you won’t be able to see these functions at all anywhere on the app.
So in order to help you fix this problem and know why some of these issues happen, we will guide you through this beloved Spotify function and make you forget about the time when you searched “why are Spotify lyrics not working?”
How Do I Access Spotify Lyrics?
First of all, let’s dive into how to get the lyrics of a song to show up on the screen as if you had not found any sort of problem just yet. When you start playing a song on Spotify, you’ll be able to do the usual things, play, stop, play the next song, and so on, but if you scroll down, you will find the lyrics of that song, which will automatically scroll down depending on the part of the song.
The app will also highlight the part of the song you are in so it makes it easier for you to know where to read or even sing along!
Also, you have to keep in mind that not every song on the platform has lyrics, this is mainly due to the fact that Spotify itself doesn’t add the lyrics to every song. The lyrics you see are a consequence of the deal Spotify made with MusixMatch, which covers almost every version of Spotify except Spotify Japan which uses PetitLyrics.
If you can’t find the lyrics for a song on Spotify then it might not have been added to MusixMatch, maybe because it’s very new or because it’s not popular enough, just to give you an idea, Spotify has around 82 million songs, and MusixMatch only covers roughly 7 million so give it some time and you might see more of this function on your favorite songs.
Spotify Lyrics on Different Devices
You can access the lyrics on every device, but you may find small differences between each one
Phone (Android and iOS)
- First, open the Spotify app on your phone
- Choose the song you want to play
- Once you do, the bottom bar will appear showing the song and the artist currently playing
- You’ll be able to see the “Lyrics” at the bottom, tap it and you will see the lyrics along with the song controls
- If you tap the expand icon at the top right, you’ll be able to see it in fullscreen mode.
PC
If you are not used to using Spotify on a desktop whether it’s on the browser or the app, you may have a bit of trouble finding the lyrics, so here is how to do it:
- First, open the web player or the desktop app and choose the song you want to listen to
- Then you will turn your attention to the bottom, same as the phone app but this time you will look for a microphone icon that’s near the volume controls.
- Click on it and you will be able to see the lyrics.
TV
You can also access the lyrics for songs on Spotify while using the SpotifyTV app, which is an awesome way to throw a karaoke party at your home.
If you want to know how to get the lyrics on screen, here’s how to do it:
- First, launch the app with your remote and choose the song you want to play
- Then you search for a button on the bottom of the screen that says “Show Lyrics”,
- right where the small microphone icon is on desktop. You select that and you will have the lyrics on the screen of your TV.
If you follow the steps for any of these devices and you find that it doesn’t work for some reason then you’ll have to check these solutions to get those lyrics working on Spotify.
Why Are Spotify Lyrics Not Working?
If you find yourself in a situation where you can’t find the lyrics for a song and you already checked with a friend’s phone to see if you were the one with the problem, then we have a few things you should try that may help you fix the problem.
Check for Updates
A lot of the time we set our phones to not update automatically for many different reasons, but this also makes us forget about updating our apps, which can lead to some aspects not working properly, so remember to check if you have the latest version of Spotify.
Log Out and Log In
This is a fairly easy thing to do and it helps a lot of people. If you have the latest update for Spotify and you still cannot see the lyrics anywhere, then we suggest you just log out of your user and log back in.
If you don’t know how to do it just follow these few steps below to help you try this faster.
- Click on your profile and select the option that says “log out”(on the phone app just tap the “Settings” button and select “log out”
- This will take you out of your profile and to the “Log In” screen.
- There you just input you enter your credentials and try the app again.
Delete Playlists
One thing that sometimes helps, is deleting playlists, as this may cause lagging, freezing, and more including some issues with the lyrics.
According to some people that have tried this method, the lyrics appear to show up without any problems after doing this, so give it a try if you think you have too many playlists.
Uninstall and Install
This is a very common method when you find yourself out of options with any app, it’s impressive how many times this fixes issues that seem impossible to fix, so give it a try, it may be a bit annoying but hey, if everything else fails, there is no harm in trying.
Customer Support
If you want the most accurate answer and you think that nothing you do is working, then contacting customer service may give you the answers you are looking for.
There are many ways to do this, you can contact them via email, Spotify Community, or even Twitter, whatever works best for you.
Alternative Sites to Find Lyrics
If the lyrics you want aren’t in the Spotify app, you can always try and find them someplace else, but if you want the most accurate source, then you can trust us with these options to get you on your way and be able to follow the lyrics while you listen to a song!
Genius
This site is probably the most popular lyrics site today, featuring YouTube interviews and more. This site stands out not only because it has an accurate trustworthy source of lyrics but also because it offers annotations, stories, and explanations related to the songwriter’s intention and context, which is a very nice touch on their part.
You can get to Genius via browser or you can get the Genius app which also offers a few extra features for you to enjoy.
AZLyrics
This one has been around for quite some time now, it has been providing lyrics to people since 2000 in various languages. If you’ve tried Spotify and Genius and you still can’t find lyrics for a song, this is the site for you.
Another great thing about AZLyrics is that it allows anyone to submit lyrics, you just have to wait around a week to get approval, and that’s it!
MusixMatch
While this is not exactly an alternative, you can also go directly to MusixMatch to search for the lyrics of a song.
However keep in mind that you will be getting exactly what you get on Spotify since they get the lyrics from MusixMatch, but you will also be able to easily translate to other languages so it’s a nice touch that makes it worth checking out.
Conclusion
Spotify is awesome but it’s not perfect, so be prepared to find some of these problems that may slightly affect your experience with the app, such as Spotify lyrics not working, but don’t worry, even though Spotify lyrics are relatively new, you will probably be able to fix any issues related to it with the solutions we provided for you.
And remember that if everything is working properly and you still can’t find the lyrics for a specific song, it may just be that it hasn’t been added to MusixMatch, so remember to keep in mind that sometimes you may have to use an alternative site to get the lyrics for some of the songs.