Not all punctuation.  I’ve got nothing against apostrophes.  But most punctuation that’s put on a lyric sheet – question marks, exclamation points, dashes, semi-colons – can and often does mislead the writer(s) of the song.

Why?  Because the listener will never see the punctuation when they’re listening to the song.

The point is – the punctuation has to be in the music!

When you read the previous sentence, you can feel the emphasis I create in the prose with the exclamation point.  But if a line is sung, that emphasis must be created musically.

For example, when David Bowie sings, “Fame“… you feel the exclamation point.  And when, in the same song, he sings, “Is it any wonder“… you feel the question mark.

In Bacharach/David’s ‘Alfie’, when you hear the line, “What’s it all about, Alfie“, the melody (not the lyric sheet) tells you it’s a question.

Even so, it was hard for me not to put a question mark after Hal David’s line in the previous paragraph.  Yes, it is a question, but the melody compels me to hear it that way.

So when we write/type out our lyrics, it doesn’t help if we fool ourselves into thinking that putting ‘?‘ or ‘!‘ after a line means anything.  The melody and rhythm of the song must create the punctuation.

Putting punctuation on a lyric sheet can mislead the writer into thinking the job’s actually getting done.