Words or Record Song Book was a monthly music magazine popular in the 60's and 70's.  It was published by Felix McGlennon Ltd and featured song lyrics of some of the current hits and misses, with some news/features and photos. Published in black and white.

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Starting sometime in 1888 the final issue was published on 1st August 1980

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If any one has any more info on this publication (or scans of issues) then please get in touch.

Words (frequently published under the full banner Words and Record Song Book) was a foundational staple of British youth and pop culture publishing, running from the mid-1960s through the 1970s and into 1980.

Core Purpose and Format

• The Ultimate Lyric Guide: Unlike glossy teen weeklies that focused heavily on gossip, pin-ups, or deep journalism, Words was strictly functional by design. It existed so teenagers could learn the exact lyrics to current chart hits and turntable misses. Each issue typically crammed in anywhere from 30 to 40 song lyrics pulled straight from the radio and the official charts.

• Layout and Production: Aside from full-colour glossy front covers featuring major pop, glam, rock, or folk acts of the day (ranging from The Troggs and The Beatles to Slade, T. Rex, and Elton John), the interior was utilitarian. Printed on cheap, thin newsprint paper, the inside pages were entirely black-and-white, packed tight with text columns of lyrics alongside occasional small band photos, brief tour dates, or quick release blurbs.

Cultural Footprint

Before the widespread availability of lyric insert sheets inside commercial vinyl records—and long before the internet—publications like Words and its rival Disco 45 served as the primary text source for a generation of music fans wanting to sing along accurately to Top of the Pops. Because they were printed cheaply on low-quality paper and treated as disposable items to be sung along with or cut up for scrapbooks, surviving mid-60s and 70s copies in clean condition are fiercely sought after by vintage pop nostalgia collectors today.

Pinpointing an exact day for the very first issue of Words (later Words and Record Song Book) is difficult because exact publication day-counts and formal launch records for low-budget, utilitarian lyric periodicals from that era weren't heavily archived.

However, surviving collectors' markets and archive registries trace its debut back to mid-1966, aligning with the mid-sixties boom of British beat music culture and the pressing demand for fan song sheets.

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