Lines and repeats
Reviewed conventions, examples, and the sources behind them.
The checks below catch specific patterns in your text. They support your review; passing them does not verify every part of a convention.
Transcribe line by line, not in paragraphs
Individual lyric lines (opens in a new tab) Split prose-like transcription into lyric lines. Verified 2026-08-12. Lyrics are transcribed line by line, each line ending where the musical phrase does — in most songs the snare marks the count, and the words landing on it show where a bar's lines break — because a long prose-like run hides where lines stop and how the rhyme scheme runs, especially on a phone.
Exceptions and context
The linter flags a line dense enough to read as prose; hearing where the beat actually breaks it is a judgment only the transcriber can make.
What LyricLint checks
A line that reads like prose
Flagged example [Verse] I walked into the room, and everyone was talking; the lights were fading, while another story started and nobody stopped to breathe before the ending arrived.
Multiple clauses and a high word count make the transcription look prose-like. There is no fixed character limit; listen for musical line breaks and split only when supported by phrasing.
Accepted by this check [Verse] A short lyric line
Spoken sections break into lines too
Individual lyric lines (opens in a new tab) Split prose-like transcription into lyric lines. Verified 2026-08-12. A spoken intro, interlude, or outro is transcribed line by line like everything else, split where the speaker pauses and where sentences begin and end — never as one paragraph.
Type repeated lyrics out in full
Repeated sections (opens in a new tab) Transcribe repeated lyrics instead of placeholders. Verified 2026-08-12. A section the song repeats — a returning chorus, a refrain — is typed out in full at every occurrence, and so are lyrics repeated inside one section: a header or a count never stands in for words the song sings again, so nobody reading along has to scroll back to find them.
Exceptions and context
The linter flags x2 counts and Repeat placeholders outright, and offers to link identical choruses so the copies stay identical. On Genius itself, copy each repeated line together with the annotation number it carries in Edit Lyrics mode, so the annotations repeat with the words.
What LyricLint checks
A placeholder instead of the repeat
Flagged example [Chorus x2] Words
Repeated sections should contain the transcribed lyrics. The placeholder is preserved because expanding it requires the editor to choose the correct source section.
Accepted by this check [Chorus] Words again
Repeated parts that are not linked
Flagged example [Chorus] Hold the line [Verse 1] A lyric [Chorus] Hold the line
This song part appears 2 times, and every copy already matches or is still empty. Linked, editing one edits them all, so a correction can never land in just one copy.
Accepted by this check [Chorus] Hold the line [Verse 1] A lyric
An immediate repeat shares one header
When an entire song part is sung again immediately, its lyrics are typed out again under the same single header, with no blank line between the copies.
[Chorus] Hold on tight We ride tonight [Chorus] Hold on tight We ride tonight
[Chorus] Hold on tight We ride tonight Hold on tight We ride tonight
What LyricLint checks
An immediate repeat split in two
Flagged example [Chorus] Again Tonight [Chorus] Again Tonight
This section exactly repeats the song part immediately before it. Genius keeps the repeated lyrics, but places both copies together under the same header without a blank separator.
Accepted by this check [Chorus] Again Tonight Again Tonight
No doubled spaces or hidden characters
How to Add Songs to Genius (opens in a new tab) Index of lyric accuracy and formatting guidance. Verified 2026-08-17. Lyric text keeps exactly one ordinary space between words and carries no invisible characters — the clean, concise text the transcription guide asks for.
Hold on tight
Hold on tight
Exceptions and context
The exact checks are LyricLint's own text hygiene rather than a stated Genius rule: the guide asks for clean, accurate text without naming spacing, so this advisory carries LyricLint's name.
What LyricLint checks
More than one space between words
Flagged example [Verse] Two words
Consecutive ordinary spaces between words are mechanically detectable formatting residue. Genius does not state an exact one-space rule, so LyricLint treats this as a text-hygiene suggestion.
Accepted by this check [Verse] Two words
Whitespace you cannot see
Flagged example [Verse] A lyric
Trailing spaces survive a copy into Genius without ever being visible in the editor. Removing them changes nothing a reader can see, and the parser already treats a whitespace-only line as a blank one, so no section boundary moves.
Accepted by this check [Verse] A lyric