Dig Into Lyrics on Genius
Country music fans, meet Genius. No, it’s not a new band but a novel way to view and interpret song lyrics and other forms of the written word.
Created in 2009 as Rap Genius, the website quickly expanded into everything from the collected works of Shakespeare and the speeches of Abraham Lincoln to TV and movie scripts. But it began with song lyrics, and country music is a major component.
Genius breaks down text with line-by-line annotations, added and edited by anyone in the world. Texts on Genius are living documents, and the annotations are like miniature Wikipedia pages.
When a contributor writes an annotation and those comments are upvoted by readers, the individual’s Genius IQ increases. Earn enough IQ and you might even make the leaderboard or become the top scholar on your favorite artist or author.
Visit the Genius website for more details. Meanwhile, here are five hit country songs that have undergone the Genius treatment:
Run ol' Bocephus through a jukebox needle
Some say that I should trade up
Now that I got some jangle in my pocket