Songwriters’ News December 2025

 

Meeting Dates
By Mike Rudquist
 
Please Note: Going forward, all online Zoom events will use the same Zoom link.  Here is a member-only link to our "Member Event Access" page which has the Zoom link:

https://mnsongwriters.org/activities/member-event-access/

 Also Note:  All monthly MAS online meetings will be held within the same time frame of 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.  (This does not include the Minnesota Homebrew Radio Show.  See the event listing below for times.)

Monthly Mixer with Doug Millaway
Wednesday, December 3, 2025, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.

This meeting allows for all types of topics to be explored and discussed as it relates to songwriting – the writing process, production, inspiration, the music business – all topics related to the craft, production and business of songwriting. This is a moderated open discussion, and participants are encouraged to share their personal experiences and expertise.

Minnesota Homebrew Radio Show with Carl Unbehaun
Thursdays all month – 4, 11, 18, 25

Every Thursday evening from 6 to 7 pm, fellow MAS member and radio DJ Carl Unbehaun offers music written and/or performed by Minnesota musicians on his Minnesota Homebrew Radio Show. Radio station KSRQ in Thief River Falls (90.1 FM) streams Carl’s show via the Internet. On the FIRST Thursday of the month, Carl dedicates his entire show to music written by members of the Minnesota Association of Songwriters!

To submit your songs to Carl’s MAS-dedicated show or to have it played on any Thursday night, contact Carl at minnesotahomebrew@gmail.com.

To listen to Minnesota Homebrew on your devices, click here:  https://mnsongwriters.org/activities/radio-airplay/.

Online Round Robin Song Share with Paul Nye
Wednesday, December 10, 6:30 – 8:30 pm

This is a laid-back, come as you are type get together with fellow songwriters to share your songs in a take turns fashion either performing live via zoom or with a recorded version of your songs. Just for fun and just to get together and play. Even if you want to just join in to listen, this is the place for you!

Monthly Online Song Review Session Hosted by Doug Millaway
Wednesday, December 17 – 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm

This is our general information and song review meeting. You are welcome to play an original song in any phase of its development or completion for purposes of potentially improving it based on feedback received.

Please refrain from submitting songs you do not intend to change from feedback given. You’re welcome to share those in our Round Robin Song session above.

Our review sessions are one of the best opportunities to help you learn and improve your craft. Giving feedback on other writers’ songs, and listening to others doing the same, is a great teaching tool.

You may submit your song’s audio and-or lyrics only for review up to the time of the review session. Please note, we are limited in the songs we can fit in, so you’ll want to watch for the email announcement to submit them and get it in early. Please do not submit songs prior to the announcement to avoid missing out.

We will play an MP3 of your song directly in the room. While MP3s played digitally in the room are generally easier for people to hear, they are not required for feedback. We’ll also accept lyrics only.

Find more detail, go to our Song Review Meeting page on our website: https://mnsongwriters.org/activities/meetings.

You can check out all MAS events on our website calendar

Annual Meeting of MAS Membership
Thursday, December 11, 6:30 p.m

It’s time for an annual meeting of our membership.  We will be holding the meeting on Zoom on Thursday, Dec. 11th at 6:45.  The Zoom link is below. 

Since the meeting will fall within the relative time limit of when any food leftover from Thanksgiving will be still eatable, we’d invite you to have a Zoom potluck.  I’d say “bring a dish to share,” but, you know….Zoom.  Still, that shouldn’t stop anyone from having a nice post-Thanksgiving leftovers meal during our annual meeting. 

The agenda is still being put together, but this meeting is a great opportunity for you to talk directly to the board and give us input on how we can server MAS members better.  All ideas are welcome.  We have a few changes slowly sliding down a treble clef of future plans somewhere, and are looking forward to presenting them to the membership.

 

 

President's Message
Finding Inspiration To Write
By Paul Nye, MAS President

How do we find inspiration to write? Where does it come from? Some songwriters claim they can only write when inspired. If we lived like that in other areas of life, we’d never practice our instruments, clean the garage, or figure out where that missing sock went after laundry day. Inspiration is wonderful — but waiting on it is about as productive as waiting for a tax refund from 1978.

I’ve talked with Nashville pros who write 300–400 songs a year. That’s not inspiration — that’s stamina, caffeine, and a deep emotional refusal to get a normal job. It also raises serious questions: Are there too many songs floating around Earth’s atmosphere? Do they evaporate? Do they collect somewhere over Iowa? Who writes them all?

Allow me to digress (something I’m apparently really good at). All this makes me think of one of the most prolific, mysterious songwriters in history: someone known simply as Traditional. You’ve seen the name in hymnals, sheet music, folk collections — like other one-name hit songwriters such as Prince, Sting, or Beyoncé, but with fewer sequins and more pipe organs. Traditional has written thousands of songs across cultures and denominations. If royalties existed in the1600s, Traditional would own several lakes, at least one castle and maybe a state or two.

For years I wondered: Was Traditional Lutheran? If so, which synod — MissouriSynod? ELCA? Scandinavian? Did Traditional enjoy lutefisk or simply tolerate it like the rest of us? And most importantly: what was Traditional’s favorite hot dish?There’s a song here…. somewhere. That said, at this point, I should probably refocus.

So — inspiration. Where does it actually come from?
For me, the answer is observation. Every person has a story, and every story has the potential to become a song — even if its only purpose is to serve as the musical equivalent of CliffsNotes for a moment in someone’s life.

I’ve never dealt with writer’s block, and I don’t think it’s because I’m gifted — I think it’s because I practice. If you want to write better songs, you must write — even if you toss out the first 20–30 attempts. Writing is like exercise: it may not always be exhilarating, but it builds muscle.

Example: during a recent physical therapy session, my PT doctor mentioned he surprised his daughters one morning by stopping for donuts on the way to school. As he spoke about the experience and his daughters’ reaction, my songwriter brain whispered, “Well, there’s a song: Donut Day.” Will it be a hit? Probably not. Will it sharpen the craft? Absolutely.

So here’s a challenge: look around the room you’re in, pick the least interesting object and write one verse and a chorus about it. Then — keep going. Because songwriting isn’t magic. It’s work. Now get to it. 

Putting It Out There

Events and Happenings you are participating in or something you have accomplished  and want everyone to know about.

Monday Open Mic at Rail Werks Brewing Depot features a performance by a different special guest artist every week. 6:30pm-8:30pm. Signups in person. Awesome music, BBQ and beverages. Hosted by Don Strong. Come join us!

A new Open Mic Wednesdays at Peoples Organic, Southdale Mall, Edina. Awesome acoustic music in a classy room with a full bar, tasty organic food.   
Hosted by Don Strong

It Works for Me

The column where you can share any and all things that work for you to make your songwriting better, easier and more fun.

William Lang

(Editor’s Note) – A great take on the assignment.  Why not write song lyrics about the idea of “It Works for Me”!
When I was a Boy, lived under a shell
Wouldn't let nobody in, kept it to myself 
Guarded my heart, guarded my soul
Had a restless spirit that couldn't let go

I found comfort when I was left all alone
In my basement bedroom, lost in a Tom Petty Song
The record was scratched and the needle would skip 
Just Free Falling into the Abyss 

What Works for me, may not work for you
Life is a pot of Mulligan Stew
Throw it out there and see what sticks
A journey of lessons learned, there are no scripts

That Boy grew up to became a Young Man
Peaked out of his shell, began to understand 
Need to find Comfort, in your Uncomfort Zone
Hold on to your Parachute, your not Alone 
Follow your heart, it will guide the way
That is what all the Dead Poets Say 

What Works for me, may not work for you
Life is a pot of Mulligan Stew
Throw it out there and see what sticks
A journey of lessons learned, there are no scripts

I'm an Old Man now, with wrinkles and scars as proof
No need to Confess my sins, He Knows the truth 
Write it on my Tombstone, in Red, White and Blue 
When your Dead, it's Game Over, Nothing Left to do

What Works for me, may not work for you
Life is a pot of Mulligan Stew
Throw it out there and see what sticks
A journey of lessons learned, there are no scripts
Articles

The Undercover Story
By Doug Millaway

Todd Snider (1966-2025)
Songwriters often believe that despair is the darkest place a writer can go—but Todd Snider’s insight flips that idea on its head: “It isn’t the despair that gets you, it’s the hope.”

In those ten words, he reveals something essential about the emotional engine behind great songwriting: conflict. Not the quiet kind, but the kind that rattles around inside the human heart—where what we want and what we fear collide.

Hope Is Where the Trouble Starts. Despair is stagnant. It’s the bottom of the well. There’s nowhere left to fall. Hope, though—hope is dangerous. It’s the moment when a character lifts their eyes, even when they’re not sure they deserve the sunrise. That tension—wanting something deeply and doubting you’ll ever get it—is the stuff unforgettable songs are made of.

Think of the songs that stay with us. Nine times out of ten, they’re powered by this unstable charge:

Songwriters don’t need perfect lives. They need honest ones. The best writing doesn’t come from pretending to have it together—it comes from standing in the middle of your own contradictions and reporting the truth.

Todd Snider mastered that balance. His stories always held two realities: the broken thing, and the belief it might still be fixed. That duality is where his humor, ache, and humanity came from.

When you write from conflict—your own or your character’s—you invite listeners into a space where they can see themselves more clearly. To harness this, let the cracks show. They’re where the light gets in.

In the end, Snider’s quote is a reminder that the highest art often rises from the tension between what hurts and what keeps us reaching. Despair might weigh us down—but hope is what turns the weight into a story worth singing.

I saw Todd in Duluth when he was touring with John Prine. Todd had a strong relationship with songwriters like John, Kris Kristofferson, Jimmy Buffett, and others. Obviously, his name is not as well-known, but his songs were equal to the task when compared to theirs. 

He will be missed.

Doug Millaway
Mill Away Publishing
Blind Owl Studio

In Praise Of The Silly Song
By Mary Kealy-Falk

The other day I was clicking through some YouTube videos, and I came across one that really brought back memories.  It was a commemorative flashback video of some of the highlight moments on a local Minnesota children’s television show called “Lunch with Casey”.  The characters on the show were two local actors who played the roles of “Casey Jones” and “Roundhouse Rodney”. Casey was a railroad train engineer and Roundhouse was his sidekick.

This show was televised live every weekday on local television station WTCN out of Minneapolis from 1954 to 1973 and every young kid who was either still at home before entering grade school or was able to come home for lunch while in school, would watch this show.  It was a show that mixed live antics between Casey and Roundhouse with intermittent cartoons and live guests who came on the show.  It was a mixture of entertainment, comedy, learning, and instruction for young kids with lots of goofiness, fun and laughs mixed in. 

One thing that I remember vividly that I loved watching was when either Casey or Roundhouse would dress up in a crazy, funny outfit and lip sync a really silly song.  And there were no holds barred with how they presented themselves.  Roundhouse dressed up as a woman to sing the silly song “I Love Onions” and Casey dressed up in a long underwear outfit (a real one!) to sing the song “Walking in My Winter Underwear”.

When I think back to those days, I just marvel at the boldness and inventiveness of these two actors/broadcasters to come up with these zany skits tied in with hilariously funny songs that really resonated with their young audience.  It made me wonder in retrospect if as we grow older and start to take things “more seriously”, we haven’t in some way lost a natural and wonderful aspect of being human – our ability to “get” a kick out of the wacky, zany, and hilarious aspects of songs and songwriting.

The one musician who has taken on the torch of writing and singing the silly song that came about after Casey and Roundhouse is Al Yankovich.  He uses the same metrics to create his silly songs and has mastered the craft of taking a standard song’s title and creating his silly, irreverent version of it.  One such song is “I Love Rocky Road” – a title reworked to his brand of quirkiness from the song “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll.”  He has made a distinctive name for himself “Weird Al Yankovich” by using this technique with many popular songs that he reworks into funny near lyrics.  

A few years ago, MAS member Mike Rudquist and I were collaborating and working on some ideas for a new song and without us even realizing it, it morphed into a goofy, and at times a funny song.  It’s called “I Got it Real Bad” and Mike used his track system to lay down a funky Prince track, and we added some silly lyrics to go with it.  Although I seriously doubt it will ever see any play other than on our phones, it was a fun song to write, and I always laugh and get a kick out of listening to it.  Letting our goofy juices flow was a lot of fun.    I would sincerely encourage any songwriter to take a dive into writing as goofy, silly, dumb and will never be heard by more than three people type song.  It’s soul rejuvenating and makes songwriting more joyful, fun and real!

The tracks for all the songs in this article are listed below.  Have fun listening to them and feel free to get a few good belly laughs in through the process!

Word To The Wise
By Wayne Hamilton

What’s Happening Musically Around Town

The Parkway Theatre
4814 Chicago Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55417
612 822 8080

I lived, briefly, just a few blocks from this place on the East side of Minneapolis when it was “just” a movie theatre. It has since become a little-known venue for standup comedy and premiere, live-music one night stands as well. They don’t spend a lot of money on publicity, but they don’t have to. True music afficionados know and love the joint. They’re too expensive for some, but the acts they bring in are worth it. Because they are small, they often sell out, so it’s wise to be on their email and newsletter lists and order early.

Upcoming Examples:
Cedric Burnside
December 4
7:30-9:30
$35 – $55

Cliff Eberhardt, John Gorka, Patty Larkin, Lucy Kaplansky
February 25
Details TBA

Jimmy Webb
April 8
6:30 doors
7:30 music  $60-$93