Spotify Lyrics API — Synced LRC, SRT, JSON | Spotify API

What is the Lyrics API?

The Spotify Lyrics API is a developer-focused endpoint that returns word-level, time-synchronized lyrics for any track in Spotify's catalog. Each line carries a precise startTimeMs timestamp, making it possible to highlight the active lyric in real time as a track plays — exactly the way the official Spotify app does. You can request the same data in four interchangeable output formats (JSON, LRC, SRT, RAW) so you can drop it directly into a karaoke app, a video subtitle pipeline, a lyric overlay for streamers, or an analytics workflow without writing your own parser.

Under the hood the endpoint resolves the canonical Spotify track ID, fetches the time-coded lyric track, and serializes it to your chosen format. There is no rate-limited OAuth flow to manage and no client-side player needed — a single GET request returns full lyrics in milliseconds.

Use Cases

🎬

Subtitle Apps

Auto-generate SRT subtitles for music videos and lyric reels in seconds.

🎤

Karaoke Games

Power real-time lyric highlighting and word-by-word scoring.

🎓

Music Education

Teach pronunciation, prosody and song structure with synced text.

🧠

Sentiment Analysis

Run NLP and emotion classifiers on full lyric corpora at scale.

💬

Fan Sites & Forums

Embed accurate, attributed lyrics on artist pages and song reviews.

🎙️

Podcast Transcription

Bootstrap transcripts for music podcasts and DJ-set show notes.

Output Formats

Pick the format that matches your downstream pipeline. All four return the exact same lyric content — only the serialization differs.

JSON (default)

Structured object with lyrics.lines[] — each entry has startTimeMs and words. Best for custom UIs, karaoke renderers, and analytics.

GET /api/spotify/track_lyrics?id=3z8h0TU7ReDPLIbEnYhWZb&format=json
{
  "lyrics": {
    "lines": [
      { "startTimeMs": "0", "words": "Is this the real life?" },
      { "startTimeMs": "4280", "words": "Is this just fantasy?" }
    ]
  }
}

LRC

The de-facto karaoke format. Drop the file straight into VLC, foobar2000, or any LRC-aware player.

GET /api/spotify/track_lyrics?id=3z8h0TU7ReDPLIbEnYhWZb&format=lrc
[00:00.00]Is this the real life?
[00:04.28]Is this just fantasy?

SRT

Universal subtitle format — feed directly into FFmpeg, Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, or YouTube uploads.

GET /api/spotify/track_lyrics?id=3z8h0TU7ReDPLIbEnYhWZb&format=srt
1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,280
Is this the real life?

RAW

Plain text — one lyric per line, no timestamps. Ideal for sentiment analysis, NLP pipelines, and lyric search indexes.

GET /api/spotify/track_lyrics?id=3z8h0TU7ReDPLIbEnYhWZb&format=raw
Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?

Frequently Asked Questions

Are the lyrics time-synchronized?

Yes. The JSON format returns a startTimeMs (in milliseconds) for every line, so you can highlight, seek, or align audio with sub-second precision.

Which output format should I use?

Use JSON when you are building a custom UI, LRC for karaoke players, SRT for video subtitles or YouTube, and RAW for NLP and search indexing.

How do I get a track ID for /track_lyrics?

Track IDs come from the Spotify URL (e.g. spotify.com/track/3z8h0TU7ReDPLIbEnYhWZb) or from the search endpoint. You can also call /search_lyrics?q= and use the returned ids.

Is there a batch endpoint?

Yes. Pass a comma-separated list of track IDs to /track_lyrics_batch?ids=id1,id2,id3 to fetch up to many tracks in a single request — ideal for warming caches and bulk processing.

Can I get instrumental (no-vocal) versions?

The vocalRemoval=true flag on /track_lyrics returns lyrics aligned to the instrumental track, useful for karaoke apps that strip the lead vocal.

Spotify Lyrics API Synced LRC, SRT, JSON

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