Nothing beats a song for capturing the heart of a matter with eloquence and emotion. But before you weave the words of a popular tune into your content, know what you’re getting into, because the complexities can be much knottier than for quoting prose.
Quoting even a single line of copyright-protected song lyric requires permission from the copyright holder–and there may well be more than one. Song lyrics are attached to a larger production, and it can be frustrating, time-consuming work tracking down all the stakeholders. Each of them will almost certainly charge you, and they will have requirements for how you use the lyrics.
Moreover, your permission will probably only be good for your initial print run of X number of books (the copyright holder will want to know how many). If your book does well enough to require subsequent printings, you will most likely need to renew your licensing and pay more fees. Do you really want to go through all that?
Maybe you’re willing to. That’s fine as long as you understand that it’s up to you to do the legwork. The author, not the editor or the publishing house, is normally responsible for obtaining and paying for all permissions, including those for song lyrics, and for keeping a record of licensing information.
What about Fair Use?
Fair use applies primarily to the limited use of prose. Song lyrics–and poetry–lie outside its umbrella.
The only song lyrics you can freely use are those that lie within the public domain. If you want to quote “Amazing Grace,” have at it. But if you want to quote “King of Love” by Steven Curtis Chapman, you’ll have to obtain permission.
One Work-Around
If you’re in love with how a particular song expresses a point you’re making, you can in your own words describe the song. For example: “In her song ‘Better Man,’ Taylor Swift poignantly captures the heartache, the damage, and the trauma bond of an abusive relationship.”
The above solution may be just the ticket for you. In any case, consider well before directly quoting song lyrics. If you absolutely must, then you should get to work early obtaining permissions. Until you’ve got them, the one thing you really, really need to avoid is writing anything that depends heavily on the words of a particular song. It’s like building a house before you’ve laid the foundation.