If you want to sing anything properly then you absolutely have to know the lyrics to the song you’re singing. If you don’t then you might as well not be singing at all because no matter how good your voice is, the song is wrong if you don’t have the right lyrics.
Naturally with the birth of the internet it has become much easier to get the lyrics you want for any song. I have a favorite site that I go to for the lyrics I need. It’s called www.sing365.com and I like it for several reasons.
First of all they have the lyrics to every song I’ve ever looked for and you can search for the words to the songs you need either by artist, album, song title, or whatever. I have found that some song titles can be difficult to find if they’re words that have apostrophes in them, for example, Van Halens’ “Ain’t Talkin ‘Bout Love”. My remedy for that search was to search by album, otherwise you need to be certain you’ve got all you apostrophes in the right place.
The second reason I prefer this site over any other site I’ve found is that when you print your lyrics they come out with fairly large lettering that is dark and easy to read. You could read it on stage if you had to, not that I prefer doing business that way. Also the verses and choruses are well separated so if you’re doing a karaoke type thing or you’re a vocalist that is learning on the fly, it’s easy to keep track of where you are.
One of the guys I toured with back in the nineties had a funny story for me one night. He had been playing in some hole in the wall club and was on a break between his second and third set. This guy comes up to him (after too many drinks) and asks “hey man, do you guys know ‘Slow Comin’ Walter?’” My buddy had never heard of the song and after a bit the guy starts to sing it to him, (for all you Deep Purple fans) he sings “Slow comin’ Walter, the fire engine guy” The actual song he wanted was called Smoke on the Water. I laughed like crazy when I heard that one… Maybe the folks in the audience could benefit from knowing the right lyrics too eh???
The moral of the story is this... You need to know the lyrics to the songs you sing! You run the risk of looking seriously unprofessional if you don’t, and believe it or not, I actually think it makes it easier to learn a song. It just seems to remove an aspect of confusion when you’re learning a song.
I’ve taken pages of lyrics up on stage with me for prompting on new material but have never stood there and read a song to the audience. Lately I seem to have developed a knack for remembering the words fairly quickly. Like always I sing what I’ve learned over and over again until it becomes a habit to sing it properly.
One thing I've found over the years is that knowing the lyric is usually the difference between my being super confident while I perform versus feeling not quite up to par. When you know the lyrics you know the song and you can just let go and sing it and worry about getting the melody right. So make sure you know what you're singing.
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