Lacrimosa's lyrics are written almost exclusively in German, although since the 1995 album Inferno every album has featured one or two songs in English, generally written by Anne Nurmi. Finnish has also appeared in the spoken intro to two songs ("Schakal" on Inferno and "The Turning Point" on Elodia) and on a bonus track in a limited edition release of Fassade called "Vankina". Their lyrics are mainly about loneliness, sadness, darkness, despair and love.

In 1991 Tilo Wolff founded the record company "Hall of Sermon", in order to publish Lacrimosa's records.