The copyright for "songs " covers both music and lyrics. Most are copyrighted as a totality but in some cases the composer and the lyricist have individual copyrights overlaying the "group".
All that being said - unless the work is in public domain you cannot change the lyrics without express permission from the owner of the work.
It really depends on how "school friendly" the owner(s) are. As an example - it would be very difficult to obtain permission for anything that was written by Rogers and Hammerstein. ASCAP and BMI are very generous as far as allowing schools to perform their catalogues without a fee but even they aren't keen on changes.
This is a fairly general answer without knowing which song you are asking about.
Kathleen Conner
California State Thespian CFO
Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network.
Original Message------
Does anyone know what to do legally if you want to use a song but change the lyrics completely? I purchased the sheet music and the karaoke version for performance, plus in the program I credited the original composers. I would use the music but the lyrics would serve the message of the production I am working on. Do I need to do more?
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