For instructions on how to use recipes as well as pointers to other structured sites to use for word list building, see the recipes home page.
To get list of URLs of songs by an artist
We suggest alphabetizing the list to look for duplicates or similar titles. For instance, often the same song will appear both in its studio and live versions with essentially the same lyrics: there is probably no reason to grab the text from both. You can use this list of URLs to get all the lyrics by an artist using the last recipe on this page.
--webpage https://www.lyricsfreak.com/[initial]/[artist+name]/ --container class=lf-list__container=1 --webextract links --alphabetize
To get list of songs
The options below will get you a list of songs with spaces removed between words for long entries like “MARYJANESLASTDANCE”. To get the song titles converted into a word list (e.g., “MARY”, “JANES”, “LAST”, “DANCE”), replace line2word
with word2word
.
--webpage https://www.lyricsfreak.com/[initial]/[artist+name]/ --webextract html-a --regex '(.*?) Lyrics' --line2word
To get song lyrics
Use the recipe below to get the lyrics from a single song.
--webpage https://www.lyricsfreak.com/[initial]/[artist+name]/[song+name_datecode] --container id=content --webextract text --word2word
To get the lyrics from all songs by an artist, run the first recipe to get a file with a list of URLs and then use the recipe below.
--urllist --container id=content --webextract text --word2word
Additional Notes
- We have noticed that LyricsFreak will sometimes include non-lyric content such as “Short guitar break” within the text of lyrics. Always be sure to check the output for anything that doesn’t make sense for your word list.
Legal Disclaimer
Always read the terms of service first! Our inclusion of any website does not guarantee that pulling information programmatically is allowed under the site’s terms of service or that you won’t be blocked trying. We make no representations of anything; you’re on your own when use xwordlist
and when you download data from public websites while using it.