Song Title Capitalization: Rules for Every Style Guide

Whether you're writing liner notes, building a playlist description, citing a song in a research paper, or publishing a music review, getting the capitalization right matters. But the rules aren't as straightforward as you'd think - different style guides handle song titles differently, and the music industry has its own conventions on top of that.

This guide covers how to capitalize song titles in AP, APA, MLA, and Chicago style. We'll also cover albums, featured artists, special characters, and the common mistakes that trip people up.

Universal Capitalization Rules for Song Titles

Regardless of which style guide you follow, these rules apply to every song title:

• Always capitalize the first word of the title, no matter what part of speech it is. "The" in "The Way You Look Tonight" is capitalized because it's first.
• Always capitalize the last word of the title. "You" in "Someone Like You" is capitalized regardless.
• Always capitalize nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns. Words like "Love," "Dancing," "Beautiful," "She," and "Slowly" are always capitalized.
• Never capitalize articles (a, an, the) in the middle of a title unless they're the first or last word.
• Never capitalize coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for, yet, so) unless they're the first or last word.
• Short verbs are always capitalized. "Is," "Am," "Are," "Be," "Do," "Go" - these are verbs, not small words to skip over.

Where style guides disagree is prepositions (in, on, at, with, from, between) and a few edge cases with hyphenated compounds. Let's go through each one.

AP Style Song Titles

AP style is the standard for journalism, music reviews, entertainment writing, and most blog posts. The AP Stylebook is the definitive reference for these rules. If you're writing about music for a publication or website, this is probably your style.

AP style song title examples:

Notice "in" and "the" stay lowercase in the middle, but "Over," "That," and "Used" are capitalized because they're four or more letters. For more on AP rules, check our AP style title case guide.

APA Style Song Titles

If you're citing a song in a research paper, especially in psychology, education, or social sciences, APA 7th edition has specific rules. APA has two different formats depending on where the title appears.

APA in-text examples (title case):

APA reference list examples (sentence case):

The reference list format catches a lot of students off guard. In APA references, song titles use sentence case - only the first word and proper nouns are capitalized. For the full breakdown, see our APA title case guide.

MLA Style Song Titles

MLA is the standard for English classes, literature courses, and music analysis essays. If you're writing a paper about song lyrics or music history, MLA is likely your format.

MLA style song title examples:

The key MLA difference: "over" stays lowercase in "Somewhere over the Rainbow" because MLA lowercases all prepositions regardless of length. APA and AP would capitalize "Over" since it's four letters. See our MLA title case guide for more detail.

Chicago Style Song Titles

The Chicago Manual of Style is used in music publishing, musicology, and some academic contexts. Its rules are close to AP but with some key differences around phrasal verbs.

Chicago style song title examples:

Chicago's phrasal verb rule is important for music: "Give Up," "Stand Out," "Take Off," and "Shake Off" all get capitalized because "up," "out," "off" are part of the verb, not standalone prepositions. Our Chicago title case guide covers this in depth.

Side-by-Side Style Comparison

Here's how the same song titles look across all four major styles. The differences are subtle but important.

The biggest differences show up with "over" and "out." MLA lowercases both since they're prepositions. AP and APA capitalize them (four+ letters). Chicago capitalizes "Out" when it's part of a phrasal verb ("Take Out") but lowercases "over" as a standard preposition. For a full comparison of all styles, see our title case styles compared page.

Albums vs. Songs: Italics and Quotes

Capitalization rules are the same for albums and songs. The difference is formatting - how you visually distinguish between the two:

The logic follows a consistent pattern across academic writing: shorter works get quotation marks, longer works get italics. A song is a component of an album, so songs get quotes. The album is the complete work, so it gets italics.

Examples in context:

AP is the outlier here. Since AP style doesn't use italics at all, both songs and albums get quotation marks, which can sometimes create ambiguity. In those cases, adding the word "album" or "single" helps clarify.

Tricky Cases in Music Titles

Music throws some curveballs at standard capitalization rules. Here's how to handle the edge cases:

Featured Artists

When a song includes "feat." or "ft." for a featured artist, capitalize the artist's name but keep "feat." or "ft." lowercase since it's an abbreviation acting as a descriptor, not part of the title itself.

Parenthetical Subtitles

Many songs have parenthetical additions. Capitalize the first word inside the parentheses as if it starts a new title.

Numbers and Symbols

Numbers don't change with capitalization, but they follow the same position rules. Symbols like "&" replace "and" and are typically kept as-is.

Intentionally Stylized Titles

Some artists intentionally stylize their titles with unusual capitalization. In formal writing, you generally standardize to your style guide. In casual or entertainment writing, you might preserve the artist's intent.

Hyphenated Words in Song Titles

Hyphenated compound words appear in song titles fairly often. The rules vary by style:

• APA: Capitalize both parts of the hyphenated compound. "Self-Destruct," "Bitter-Sweet."
• Chicago: Capitalize both parts unless the second part is an article, preposition, or coordinating conjunction. "Grown-Up" but "Tied-up."
• MLA: Capitalize both parts. "Bitter-Sweet," "Self-Made."
• AP: Capitalize both parts. "Bitter-Sweet," "Rock-a-Bye" (middle connectors stay lowercase).

15 Common Song Title Mistakes

These are the capitalization errors people make most often with song titles. Each one shows the wrong version and the correct version (using AP style as the default).

Want to check any song title instantly? Use our headline capitalization tool - paste in a song title, pick your style, and get the correct capitalization in one click.

How Streaming Platforms Handle Titles

Streaming services don't follow any particular style guide. They display whatever the artist or distributor submits, which means you'll see inconsistencies everywhere. Here's what each platform typically does:

• Spotify: Displays artist-submitted capitalization per Spotify for Artists metadata. No standardization. You'll see everything from all-lowercase to ALL CAPS depending on the artist.
• Apple Music: Generally uses title case for its editorial content and playlists but preserves artist-submitted titles for songs and albums.
• YouTube Music: Shows whatever the uploader entered. Highly inconsistent across different uploads of the same song.
• Amazon Music: Tends toward standardized title case in its catalog but some artist-submitted variations come through.

The takeaway: don't use streaming platform displays as your capitalization guide. They're not following any consistent style. When you need to write a song title correctly, pick a style guide and apply the rules yourself - or use our capitalization tool to do it automatically.

Quick Reference Checklist

Before you finalize any song title, run through this quick checklist:

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