chord/lyric lead sheet

[Curt Siffert]

(apologies if this was posted multiple times - I tried through gmane
first and it gave me errors.)

Hi, as a songwriter that sings/plays, I often want to put together
rough lead sheets that communicate chords/lyrics/structure as a
memory aid, or to give to backup musicians.

It's not necessary for me to notate the vocal melody in these cases
and it saves time to not have to do that.  What's better is to have
the lyrics generally align with what measure they're under.

I have a template here that I think gets me most of the way there.
What's nice is that you can take the template and just focus on
putting in the chords and lyrics.  But I'm a lilypond beginner and
am curious how others could improve it.  Main questions:

1) Why is there that extra white space at the end of each bar and
        how can I reduce that?  I spent a lot of time yesterday trying 
        to compress those measures, and didn't get anywhere.
2) Apparently a "quoted lyrics line" can't be made to span over
        tied/slurred notes, so I'm not sure how to make this work 
        easily for odd-meter time signatures (3/4, 5/4).
3) I get "warnings" about putting lyrics to devnull.  But if I
        switch to a hideNotes approach, I get a "note-column has 
        no direction" warning.

Thanks, I'd love to submit this as a snippet once it's improved 
a bit.  

Curt

\version "2.15.43"
\language "english"

chordSymbols = \chordmode {
        fs1:maj7 fs:maj7/e g:sus4 f e   
}

songLyrics = \lyricmode {
        "My small girl of five wants a" 
        "story good-night she likes" 
        "kittens and pebbles and"
        "fairies asleep in the"
        "trees" 
}

slash = {
        c4 c c c
}

<<
        \new ChordNames { 
                \chordSymbols
        }
        \new Staff <<
                \time 4/4
                \new Devnull = "silent" \relative c'' {
                        \repeat unfold 5 c1
                }
                \new ImproVoice = "slash" \relative c' {
                        \repeat unfold 5 \slash 
            }   
        >>
        \new Lyrics \lyricsto "silent" {
                \override LyricText #'self-alignment-X = #LEFT
                \songLyrics
        }
>>

\layout {
        \context {
                \name ImproVoice
                \type "Engraver_group"
                \consists "Note_heads_engraver"
                \consists "Rhythmic_column_engraver"
                \consists "Text_engraver"
                \consists Pitch_squash_engraver
                squashedPosition = #0
                \override NoteHead #'style = #'slash
                \override Stem #'transparent = ##t
                \alias Voice
        }
        \context { 
                \Staff
                \accepts "ImproVoice"
        }
        \context {
        \Lyrics
        \consists "Bar_engraver"
        \consists "Separating_line_group_engraver"
        \override BarLine #'transparent = ##t
        }
}