[UFO Chicago] Speech Recognition Software

[James L Mazurek]

On Tue, 16 Sep 2025, Jay F. Shachter wrote:

> Esteemed Colleagues:
>
> I'm trying to get a transcript of the lyrics to a song ("Lexical
> Dude", by Lou & Peter Berryman, in case anyone reading this already
> has the lyrics and wants to save all of us a lot of time), and
> duckduckgo.com is not leading me to them.  I also telephoned the
> Chicago Public Library to pose the question to my friendly librarian,
> and even with a Master's degree in library science, she could not help
> me.  I have the music, in the form of an mp3 file.  Is there any free
> speech-recognition software than I can install on a free operating
> system that can be fed the mp3 file and give me back the lyrics?  As
> always, thank you in advance for any and all replies.
>
>                        Jay F. Shachter

Jay,

The Linux Documentation project lists a number of Speech Recognition 
software packages:
https://tldp.org/HOWTO/Speech-Recognition-HOWTO/software.html

I have used a Linux version of ViaVoice which is proprietary software. If 
I recall correctly, it is really intended for dictation and voice 
activated control. The software needs some level of training for it to be 
useful. I don't know how well it might work for producing lyrics from a 
song; I imagine poorly, if at all.

I will mention, I fed the following keywords into Duck Duck Go: 
lexical dude song

It provided me with the following link:
https://louandpeter.com/alphabetic-index-of-songs

The entry for "Lexical Dude" provided me with a link to the album 
information for "Some Days":
https://louandpeter.com/some-days

Which in turn provided me a link to the album lyric sheet:
https://louandpeter.com/files/390660/cd-lyrics-some-days.pdf

Jim