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ListeningNow – Spotify Song Lyrics Plugin (Windows, Mac OSX, Linux…) I haven’t found any good Spotify lyrics plugin for Mac OSX yet so I decided to code my own approach. It is not exactly a plugin but a web-based bookmarklet. There’s no installation required and works on any platform (Windows, Mac OSX, Linux and even your smartphone). How ListeningNow works Click on the bookmarklet in […]

by
on December 2, 2010
(1 minute read)


I haven’t found any good Spotify lyrics plugin for Mac OSX yet so I decided to code my own approach. It is not exactly a plugin but a web-based bookmarklet. There’s no installation required and works on any platform (Windows, Mac OSX, Linux and even your smartphone).

How ListeningNow works

Click on the bookmarklet in your browser and a popup window with the lyrics to the song you are currently listening (or just listened) in Spotify will appear.

Setting up ListeningNow

Although no software needs to be installed, you need to follow this steps in order to make ListeningNow work with Spotify.

You need to have a Spotify account and a Last.fm account.

  1. Enable scrobbling in Spotify
  2. Make sure Recently listened tracks in Last.fm is set to Public
    1. Go to your user profile
    2. Click on Settings at the right of the Recently Listened Tracks header
    3. Deselect Make this private
  3. Select one of the following available ListeningNow servers:
  4. Type in your Last.fm username:
  5. Click here: Generate bookmarklet
  6. Drag and drop the bookmarklet to your browser toolbar:
    (generate the bookmarklet first)
  7. Click on the bookmarklet any time you want to see the lyrics for a song

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If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave a line at the Comments section.

Additional information

ListeningNow tool works for Spotify and any other music player that supports Last.fm’s scrobbling real-time (Last.fm, Windows Media, iTunes, Winamp, Songbird, Amarok, Boxee, Hype Machine, Jukefly, Muxtape, PandoraFM, Squeezebox, etc.)

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17 comments

  • I have a idea. says:

    Could you add an a auto update setting to settings.
    So i could open ListeningNow in new tab and it would autimaticly update lyrcs to latest data.

  • Ulysses says:

    Great work. But would you please use a more reliable lyrics engine? The lyrics shown for The Dead’s Box of Rain is Looks Like Rain, and for Looks Like Rain it shows Dylan’s A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall…

  • Srećko says:

    This isn’t working anymore :( Is there a way to fix it, or maybe release the code?

  • Xavi Author says:

    Hi Srećko, the script is back and working again :)

  • Srećko says:

    Thanks :)

  • Kemu says:

    This isn’t working for me unfortunately

  • Lodorand says:

    Wow it’s like magic. Super awesome, much better than the lyrics apps included in Spotify.

  • Anden says:

    Is this still working? When I enter my last.fm username and click “Generate bookmarklet” it just pops me to the top of this website but nothing seems to get generated…

    Would love to use it, please fix it.
    (I’m running Firefox on Ubuntu 11.10)

  • Anden says:

    Found a way to fix it actually, I just looked at the URL in the example screenshot and edited in my username. That worked. Thanks!

  • Xavi Author says:

    Hi Anden,

    Yes, that’s pretty much what the ‘Generate bookmarklet’ does, I have fixed it anyway :)

    Enjoy!

  • Jamie says:

    Hi,
    I teach a Lyrics class. This would be so helpful if I could get it working. I have gone through the entire process over and over–still no luck. Can you tell me if this is still working? Or recommend another option similar to what Listening Now offered?

  • Bryn says:

    Could you please post the syntax for the URL? The generate button doesn’t work for me.

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