Research Guides: Research Tools for Historic Sound Recordings: Sheet Music and Liner Notes

Find Lyrics -- Historic Popular Music Scores & Lyrics Sheets

Lyrics posted on the web may not give the whole story! Find digitized sheet music of popular songs published in the 19th and early 20th centuries for more insight.

Sheet Music Consortium
Open Access
Public domain sheet music of historic American popular music from multiple collections, including Duke U, Indiana U, Library of Congress, Maine Music Box, U of North Carolina, UCLA, and others.
University of South Carolina Digital Sheet Music Project
Duke University: American Song Sheets Song sheets (not scores) that aren't included in the Sheet Music Consortium
Victorian Sheet Music and Sheet Music Covers: University of Reading, Spellman Collection
California Sheet Music
Sheet Music Collection at Fayetteville Free Library
The local public library in Fayetteville, NY has a collection of 42,000 titles of sheet music, covering American popular song from the Civil War era to the 1980's. Email librarian Monica Kuryla mkuryla@fflib.org to inquire whether they have the title you are looking for.

Research Lyrics

Facts Behind the Songs: A Handbook of American Popular Music from the Nineties to the '90s by Marvin E. Paymer (Editor)
Call Number: ML102.P66 F2 1993
ISBN: 0824052404
Publication Date: 1993-10-01
Researching the Song: A Lexicon by Shirlee Emmons; Wilbur Watkin Lewis
Call Number: E-book online
ISBN: 0195152026
Publication Date: 2006-01-19
Good for researching meanings in classical song texts