LyricsLens

Sing along with whatever is playing.

LyricsLens shows the words as they are sung, on top of everything on your screen, even a film in fullscreen. For Linux.

InstallOpen source on GitHub1 star

It stays on top.

Watch a film, write, play a game. The words float above it all. Scroll down and see for yourself.

  1. A film, fullscreen.

  2. While you work.

  3. Or whatever else is on your screen.

How it works.

  1. You press play.

    In the music app you already use. LyricsLens notices the song on its own.

  2. It finds the words.

    From LRCLIB, a free collection of lyrics where music fans mark when each line is sung. Once found, a song works without internet too.

  3. It sings along with you.

    Each line shows up as it is sung, right on top of your screen. Pause the song and it waits for you.

Shenandoah, with the moment each line is sung
  1. [00:01.50]Oh Shenandoah, I long to see you
  2. [00:06.20]Away, you rolling river
  3. [00:10.10]Oh Shenandoah, I long to see you
  4. [00:14.80]Away, I’m bound away
  5. [00:18.60]’Cross the wide Missouri
  6. [00:23.40]
  7. [00:26.00]Oh Shenandoah, I love your daughter
  8. [00:30.70]Away, you rolling river
  9. [00:34.60]For her I’d cross your roaming waters
  10. [00:39.30]Away, I’m bound away
  11. [00:43.10]’Cross the wide Missouri
  12. [00:48.00]

What you need.

A Linux computer.
It works on most Linux desktops. On GNOME it can’t stay above a film in fullscreen yet.
A music app, not the browser.
Music apps installed on your computer work. Songs playing in Firefox don’t, because Firefox never says how far into the song you are.
A recent system.
Ubuntu 24.04, Debian 13, Fedora 40 or anything newer. An up-to-date Arch works too.

Install it with one line.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Julio0Cesar/lyricslens/main/install.sh | sh

Paste it into a terminal. It installs just for you, with no admin password. Prefer to look first? Read what it does. Packages for Ubuntu, Fedora and Arch are on GitHub.

Then type lyricslens to open it.