Reading and Writing About Music

Citation Resources:

Peculiarities to Writing About Music Using MLA Style 

In the text of the paper: 

• Capitalize the main words in the title of a song or album (usually short prepositions and articles are in lowercase) 

Example: Stairway to Heaven or The Joshua Tree

• Place the title of a song or short musical composition in quotation marks.

Example:  "Stairway to Heaven" or "With or Without You" 

• Italicize the title of an album or long musical composition

Example: Led Zeppelin IV or The Joshua Tree 

• Use forward-slashes to indicate line breaks when quoting up to three lines of lyrics. Add line numbers as a parenthetical citation or indicate them in the body of the text to notify the reader of where to look for the lyrical reference in the song. 

Example: Adele sings, "Hello, it's me / I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet / To go over everything" (1-3).

• Indent each line one inch from the left margin if quoting more than four lines of lyrics. Do not use quotes.

Example:  

Adele's "Hello" gives a heartbreaking account of a relationship after years have separated a couple. She sings: 

Hello, it's me
I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet
To go over everything
They say that time's supposed to heal ya'
But I ain't done much healing. (1-5)