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Assuming I have songs with lyrics already added to them, how do I easily view them when listening to a song?

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@Am1rr3zA : Given the accepted answer, the requirement you added in was not part of my question. Ideally I did not want an entirely seperate application, but zenopolis' answer provided third party software that integrates into iTunes. It's quite a bit buggy, but I'm using it and I love it. Needless to say, I rolled back your edit, because it was inaccurate. – Jason Salaz♦ Feb 12 '11 at 20:53

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With reference to the current version (iTunes 10):

Without adding third party software, you will need to actively select the currently playing song to view its lyrics.

  • ⌘+I opens the Info window for the selected song
  • esc closes the Info window

If you open the Lyrics tab in the Info window, it will open in the same tab the next time you open it.

Visualizers

If you want to view the lyrics without interacting with your Mac, you might want to consider adding a third party visualizer. One such visualizer is Cover Version (freeware).

(NOTE: With OS 10.7.4 & iTunes 10.6.3, CoverVersion shows my lyrics with a upper case letter height of three pixels. I opened the info window and changed the font from 12 pt. to 144 pt., but it didn't change the Viz. But it's open source, so I could fix it if I were sufficiently ambitious.)

After you have installed the visualizer, you will need to select it in iTunes. For example:

View > Visualizer > Cover Version

  • Use ⌘+T to toggle the visualizer on/off
  • You can choose the menu item View > Visualizer > Options... to configure some visualizers

    (For example, in Cover Version you can switch off the background graphics to make the lyrics easier to read)

Other Third Party Software

If you want to display lyrics while using your Mac for other tasks, you'll need to use a third party application.

Examples include:

  • Get Lyrical from Shullian Productions (Donation Ware)
  • LessLyrics from Ixhan (Freeware)
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Disclaimer - I haven't tested Get Lyrical or LessLyrics myself – zenopolis Feb 10 '11 at 11:45
I KNEW something like Cover Version had to exist! Thank you! – Jason Salaz♦ Feb 11 '11 at 15:40
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There's no built in way without right-clicking/control-clicking the song and selecting Get Info but you can download widgets such as Desktop Lyrics

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Don't suppose you'd know of anything that works in the sidebar? Or perhaps a bottom bar? (Like the album art bar, but full width of iTunes, or at LEAST the full width of the library pane.) – Jason Salaz♦ Feb 4 '11 at 22:32
You could look through the software on the apple website here apple.com/downloads/macosx/ipod_itunes but I don't think you can get plugins for iTunes on the Mac which would show anything in the actual iTunes window. – conorgriffin Feb 4 '11 at 22:42
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Get Lyrica from the Mac App Store, it's only $2 and worth much more. This will find lyrics for songs in iTunes and add them automatically to the song file. Very cool.

As to displaying lyrics automatically when the song plays... sounds like a feature Lyrica should add! I'll mail the developer.

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I search a lot about this issue before and the best free solution I was found is to use Get Lyrical. it didn't use your lyric that added to them with iTunes.

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But I want it to use the lyrics I have. – Jason Salaz♦ Feb 5 '11 at 4:23

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