Gospel Music Lyrics

About Gospel Music

Much like country music and folk music, gospel music is considered more than a popular music form. Gospel music is an intrinsic part of a culture, and many people study the lyrics to gospel music songs as a way of learning about past generations and the way they experienced life and chronicled the major events of their times. Gospel music is also a living history of different belief systems and the evolving nature of religion and religious worship.

Gospel music as a musical genre shares many roots and influences with country music, soul music, and blues music, and there are many overlapping songs and artists within these genres.

Finding Gospel Music Lyrics

As with traditional country music lyrics, there are many scholarly resources through which you can find gospel lyrics. The music libraries of major universities, university cultural studies departments, and major university folk art departments are all good place to start your search. These departments will usually have extensive databases of music lyrics relating to one specific geographic region or one specific time period. Another scholarly place to try is the Folkways Project through the Smithsonian Museum. The Folkways project catalogs American folk music, of which gospel music is a major part.

These resources are great places to find old, very traditional gospel music and more obscure gospel music lyrics, but they are not the only choices you have. The following websites all have databases of gospel lyrics you can access, so you are sure to find the songs you want:

• Learning Gospel Music is a perfect website for gospel music beginners. It has gospel lyrics and chords, all broken down in a user friendly fashion. It also has a good network of links to other gospel websites you can explore.

• Gospel Song Lyrics is another user friendly site. It’s easy to search database has lyrics to many of Gospel music’s best known songs. If you don’t see the lyrics to the songs you want, you are invited to email the webmaster to request them personally.

• All Gospel Lyrics claims to be the largest resource on the internet for both Gospel and Christian music lyrics. The jury is still out on whether or not that claim is true, but they certainly do have quite an extensive database. There is also a message board you can use to swap lyrics not on the site with other users.

• #1 Gospel Lyrics is a one stop shop for all of your gospel needs. From gospel lyrics to gospel CDs and DVDs, the site has it all. The lyric database is still in the growing stages, but there is a request function where you can appeal to other users for the gospel lyrics you need.

• About.com’s Christian Music site offers some gospel lyrics, but more importantly, they have an exhaustive database of websites that do offer gospel lyrics for you to explore.

• A-Z Music Lyrics is one of those lyric databases that has a little bit of everything, including gospel lyrics. The lyrics that are included on this website are included based on the popularity of the song (and the popularity of that song as a search term), so don’t expect to find too many obscure things here.

Your Gospel Lyrics Resources

Where do you find your gospel lyrics? Let everyone else in on the secret and share the best gospel lyric resources you know by leave a comment at the end of the page.