Sourcing lyrics

Reviewed conventions, examples, and the sources behind them.

Never copy lyrics from another site

Genius staff guidance · How to Add Songs to Genius (opens in a new tab) Index of lyric accuracy and formatting guidance. Verified 2026-08-17.

Lyrics are transcribed, never copied from another lyric website — that is plagiarism. The one exception is lyrics the artist or their team released themselves, on Bandcamp, a video description, press notes, or liner notes; official sheets still carry mistakes, so even those are checked for completeness and accuracy and reformatted to Genius standards before they stand.

A page follows the streaming version

Genius staff guidance · Streaming version (opens in a new tab) The lyric page follows the streaming version. Verified 2026-08-12.

A song's page transcribes the streaming release, so lyrics only a video version carries go in the Q&A rather than into the words; where a video or an album cut differs substantially — different verses, say — it earns a page of its own, titled with (Video Version) or (Album Version) after the song's title.

Golondrina (Video Version)