Misplaced chords over lyrics

Question

I use Lilypond to make scores with only chords and lyrics. However, I don't understand the chords placement I get with the following snippet:

<<                                                                                                                                                           
  \new ChordNames
    \chordmode {
      a2:m a4:m a4:m/gis
      c2:/g c
      d2:/fis f2:m6 c2 c4 f4 c1                                             
     }
  \new Lyrics
    \lyricmode{
      " "8 "When I try to get through"4. " "2 \break                        
      " "8 "On the telephone to"4. "you"2 \break                            
      ""2. "There'll be nobody"4 "home."4 " "2. " "1 \break
    }
>>  
    \layout {                                                               
      ragged-right = ##t                                                    
      \context { \Score                                                     
        \omit BarNumber                                                     
      }                                                                     
      \context { \Lyrics                                                           
        \override VerticalAxisGroup.staff-affinity = ##f                             
        \override LyricText.parent-alignment-X = #LEFT                               
        \override LyricText.self-alignment-X = #LEFT                                 
      }
    }

which results in:

In the first line, the last two chords should appear after the text, as in the third line. Can someone explain why they are aligned in this way and how to get the desired result?

Answer 1

For an empty syllable that is used just for chord placement, you may just write _ (a single underline). This is actually equivalent to " ". However, this produces an empty markup that will not participate in spacing. If you want to have a markup participating in spacing, you want \markup \null instead which has single-point extent horizontally and vertically and thus does not disappear similarly to " ".

If I take your code and use this instead of your "workaround", I get

<<
  \new ChordNames
    \chordmode {
      a2:m a4:m a4:m/gis
      c2:/g c
      d2:/fis f2:m6 c2 c4 f4 c1
     }
  \new Lyrics
    \lyricmode{
      " "8 "When I try to get through"4. \markup \null 2 \break
      " "8 "On the telephone to"4. "you"2 \break
      ""2. "There'll be nobody"4 "home."4 " "2. " "1 \break
    }
>>
    \layout {
      ragged-right = ##t
      \context { \Score
        \omit BarNumber
      }
      \context { \Lyrics
        \override VerticalAxisGroup.staff-affinity = ##f
        \override LyricText.parent-alignment-X = #LEFT
        \override LyricText.self-alignment-X = #LEFT
      }
    }

Note that there are still quite a few " " that could just be _, and your indentation choices don't exactly ring with me.

Answer 2

I found a workaround, which is to fill the empty lyric notes with something, as in:

\lyricmode{
  " "8 "When I try to get through"4. "__"2 \break                        
  " "8 "On the telephone to"4. "you"2 \break                            
  ""2. "There'll be nobody"4 "home."4 " "2. " "1 \break
}

which would result in

To avoid the underscores showing up. I found this trick to add invisible text:

spacetwo = \lyricmode{
  \override Lyrics.LyricText.color = #white
  "X"2
  \override Lyrics.LyricText.color = #black
  }

Then:

    \lyricmode{
      " "8 "When I try to get through"4. \spacetwo \break
      " "8 "On the telephone to"4. "you"2 \break
      ""2. "There'll be nobody"4 "home."4 " "2. " "1 \break
    }

Now the result looks exactly the way I wanted:

Hope this is useful to someone!