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LP Era Lyric Sleeves.. Muse About Your Favs

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I always remember The Cars lyric sleeves. For their first four albums they were all in this LEFT to RIGHT text and all in lower case letters.
Each album had the same exact format, but smartly in colors that synergized with that platter's art. I remember being dissapointed when "Heartbeat City" came out and didn't follow the pattern.

I heard somewhere that this style was influenced by the Beat poets.

If anyone finds a scan of this or any of their fav lyric sleeves, please post!


― ZionTrain, Wednesday, 27 April 2005 23:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Costello's "Imperial Bedroom" had the lyrics all run together in huge blocks of type with no separation between songs.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Wednesday, 27 April 2005 23:56 (twenty-one years ago)

I used to like the sleeves whose lyrics were in the artist's handwriting. Billy Joel, Gary Numan and Pink Floyd did this, among others.

― ZionTrain, Thursday, 28 April 2005 00:03 (twenty-one years ago)

neil young's in-his-own-handwriting sleeves were tops. some of 'em you could pull out, unfold to a 24-inch-by-24-inch square if i'm remembering correctly and hang 'em on the wall if you were so inclined.

also liked the clash's helpful advice on the lyric sleeve to their debut, suggesting that one should not read these lyrics while listening to this album.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Thursday, 28 April 2005 02:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Minutemen, esp. Double Nickels: a single mile-wide column of 7-point type, all the songs and lyrics run together. Needed a straightedge to find the beginning of the next line. At some point I said "fuck it, just let it all wash over me, I'll figure the words out later..."

― Curious George (1/6 Scale Model) (Rock Hardy), Thursday, 28 April 2005 02:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, Pulp echoed the Clash's advice on virtually all of their records if I recall.

Whereas Felt were pretty good at scattering unlabelled blocks of lyrics in no particular order around the sleeve, such that one had to listen out for the first line and then scan the opening sentences to find the right block. Actually, I think the first Throwing Muses record did something similar. It's probably not uncommon, and is sometimes fun, at other times headache-inducing.

― Nag! Nag! Nag! (Nag! Nag! Nag!), Thursday, 28 April 2005 03:16 (twenty-one years ago)

I always dug Queen's "A Night At The Opera" and "A Day At The Races" gatefolds full of lyrics. Song titles in script. "No Synthesizers" in print. As with The Cars, a design that carried over between albums.

― ZionTrain, Thursday, 28 April 2005 04:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Another thing I just thought of...

Remember sometimes you'd get an LP that only had the lyrics to some songs on the album, maybe only one or two tunes. I can't remember specific albums off-hand but I know I'm not dreaming.

― ZionTrain, Thursday, 28 April 2005 04:39 (twenty-one years ago)

I wasn't old enough to have good taste in albums (heck I even had bad taste through most of the cassette era too), but I remember spending a lot of time with Michael Jackson's "Thriller" lyrics...they were printed on the separate sleeve, and there were weird cartoons drawn in...
It got torn up pretty badly from use, but it was a favorite.

― VegemiteGrrl (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 28 April 2005 05:02 (twenty-one years ago)

scattering unlabelled blocks of lyrics in no particular order around the sleeve

Not only Throwing Muses on 4AD, the Cocteau Twins as well – on Head over Heels, at least. "Ooze out and away onehow" from "My Love Paramour", etc. There're probably even more 4AD examples.

― OleM (OleM), Thursday, 28 April 2005 07:12 (twenty-one years ago)

ZionTrain, U2's 'Boy' was one.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Thursday, 28 April 2005 09:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Mission of Burma's Signals, Calls & Marches contained a list of words, in alphabetical order, that were used in the songs. I still think this is the coolest lyric sheet idea ever. I want to say that World of Pooh did the same thing on The Land of Thirst, but I don't have it at work right now.

― mike a, Thursday, 28 April 2005 11:55 (twenty-one years ago)

fIREHOSE's first LP had the lyrics in 8pt type just like the Minutemen, except it was in a square/spiral, making it nearly impossible to read.

The Neil Young 'posters' were cool

― diedre mousedropping (Dave225), Thursday, 28 April 2005 12:17 (twenty-one years ago)


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