How MLA Style Handles Song Lyrics and Quotations Within Quotations

MLA treats a quotation of song lyrics the same way it treats a quotation of poetry: keep the line breaks of the original, and cite by line number rather than page number when the lines are numbered. For a quotation inside another quotation, keep the inner quotation in double quotation marks, convert the surrounding quotation to single quotation marks, and cite the source you actually consulted. Both rules come from the MLA Style Center's "Ask the MLA" series, which is the site's running Q&A on specific citation problems.

Quoting song lyrics: format them as poetry

The Style Center's answer is direct: "Format a quotation of song lyrics the same way you would format a quotation of poetry." That single instruction carries several consequences.

Short quotations (three lines or fewer)

Run the lines into your prose, but mark the line breaks with a forward slash surrounded by spaces ( / ). Keep the capitalization of the original.

In "The Times They Are A-Changin'," Dylan warns the senators and congressmen that "the line it is drawn / the curse it is cast."

Long quotations (more than three lines)

Set the quotation off as a block, indented half an inch from the left margin, and reproduce the line breaks exactly as they appear in the song. Do not add quotation marks around a block quotation. If the song is divided into stanzas, preserve the stanza break as well.

Citing the lines

Because songs are usually divided into numbered lines in a published or liner-note version, MLA prefers line numbers over page numbers. Use the abbreviation "lines" or "ll." in the first citation, then bare numbers afterward.

• One line: (lines 4-5)
• Later reference: (12)

If the version you are using has no line numbers, cite the page or timestamp instead, and say so in your text (for example, "at 1:42 in the recording").

Works Cited entry

A song is cited by performer (or composer, depending on what you are discussing), title, album, publisher, and year. The container is the album or the recording platform, not the song itself.

Dylan, Bob. "The Times They Are A-Changin'." The Times They Are A-Changin', Columbia Records, 1964.

If you listened on a streaming service, name the service as the container and give the URL or app. If you are analyzing the lyrics as a written text, cite the sheet music or lyric sheet instead, and treat the songwriter as author.

Quotations within quotations: the nesting rule

The Style Center's second relevant answer explains how to cite "a quotation contained in a quotation." The mechanics are simple, but the citation decision is where students usually go wrong.

The punctuation

• The inner quotation keeps double quotation marks.
• The outer quotation switches to single quotation marks.

The reviewer noted that the poet "called the collection 'a failed elegy' before abandoning it."

If the inner quotation itself contains a quotation, alternate back to double marks — but at that depth, consider paraphrasing instead, since the punctuation becomes hard to read.

The citation

Cite the source you actually read, not the original speaker. If you found the poet's phrase quoted in a review, your parenthetical and Works Cited entry point to the review. You may name the original speaker in your sentence for clarity.

The poet called the collection "a failed elegy" (qtd. in Marsh 22).

Use the abbreviation "qtd. in" ("quoted in") when the person you are quoting is not the author of the source you consulted. The Works Cited entry is for Marsh's review, not for the poet's unpublished remark.

When to track down the original

MLA's guidance is practical rather than absolute: if the original source is available and central to your argument, find it and cite it directly. Use "qtd. in" when the original is unavailable, when you are quoting a remark reported secondhand, or when the quotation is incidental to your point.

Where these rules live on the Style Center

The site organizes this material in a few places worth knowing:

The Handbook itself sits behind MLA Handbook Plus, described on the site as "the only authorized subscription-based digital" version. The Ask the MLA posts and the quick guides are free to read; the complete Handbook is not.

Common sticking points

• Collapsing the line breaks. If you quote lyrics as running prose, the slashes are not optional — they are what tells the reader where the lines fall.
• Citing the songwriter when you read a review. Match the citation to the source in your hands.
• Mixing up the nesting. Outer single, inner double. Reversing this is the most frequent error in nested quotations.
• Forgetting "qtd. in." Without it, your reader will look for the original speaker in your Works Cited and not find them.
• Assuming a page number exists. Songs rarely have stable pagination; line numbers or timestamps are the honest choice.