Fix what’s wrong, but don’t rewrite what the artist wrote. Stick to the official released version — album booklet, label site, verified lyric video, etc. If you’re guessing, pause and double-check.
Respect the structure
Songs have rhythm. Pages do too. Leave line breaks where they belong. Don’t smash things together or add extra empty space just for looks.
Punctuation counts (but vibe-editing doesn’t)
Correct typos? Yes. Re-punctuating a whole verse because it ‘looks better’? Probably not. Keep capitalization and punctuation close to the official source.
Don’t mix versions
If you’re editing the explicit version, keep it explicit. If it’s the clean version, keep it clean. No mashups.
Let the lyrics be lyrics
This isn’t the place for interpretations, memories, stories, or trivia — that’s what comments are for. Keep metadata, translations, and bracketed stage directions out unless they’re officially part of the song.
Edit lightly
If two lines are wrong… fix the two lines. No need to bulldoze the whole page. Think ‘surgical,’ not ‘remix.’
When in doubt, ask the crowd
Not sure what they’re singing in that fuzzy bridge? Drop a question in the comments and let the music nerds swarm. Someone always knows.
"The old fish was always intended to be played on a keyboard (Fairlight, probably) but Hans Zimmer - in his only big production contribution to Oil and Gold - suggested a Shakuhachi. The main reason he suggested this was because he had just been working on the music for the Nic Roeg movie ‘Insignificance’ in which, after what some may find excessively wordy exchanges between (among others) Marilyn Monroe and Einstein, a nuclear blast rips the room apart in slo-mo to the sound of - that’s right - a meditative Shakuhachi.
So - after I’d stropped about a bit - we got the same guy down and Coelacanth as we know it was born."
Questions and Answers
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From a December 2015 blog post by Barry Andrews:
"The old fish was always intended to be played on a keyboard (Fairlight, probably) but Hans Zimmer - in his only big production contribution to Oil and Gold - suggested a Shakuhachi. The main reason he suggested this was because he had just been working on the music for the Nic Roeg movie ‘Insignificance’ in which, after what some may find excessively wordy exchanges between (among others) Marilyn Monroe and Einstein, a nuclear blast rips the room apart in slo-mo to the sound of - that’s right - a meditative Shakuhachi.
So - after I’d stropped about a bit - we got the same guy down and Coelacanth as we know it was born."