**You're listening to part of a weekly songwriting challenge I participate in with some other songwriting friends. Each week every participant must write a song containing a given word or phrase. The most fun part is listening to everyone's different interpretations, but here you can at least listen to my contributions.**


WEEK 1
Challenge: "Closing Hymn"


Closing Hymn

A clinging summer glow
Avails with the last leaf
To winter's bitter throes
A final, futile belief

It hums along, this sacred song
She knows the old one we outgrew

Then the winds settle down
They soak into the freezing ground
And stillness intercedes
Before the sacrament

The pain of knowing what we've lost
Must acknowledge what we're not
These fragments of our lives before
The closing hymn, the falling snow

Like the last few heartbeats
Before we fall asleep


Week 1- Closing Hymn

**You're listening to part of a weekly songwriting challenge I participate in with some other songwriting friends. Each week every participant must write a song containing a given word or phrase. The most fun part is listening to everyone's different interpretations, but here you can at least listen to my contributions.**

WEEK 2
Challenge: "sun goes down"

But the Sea

On an evening at the end of May in Tennessee
Scottie Moorhead jumped into the Mississippi
Whistling a tune about a man who was in love
Will we always wonder what else he was thinking of?

What could it be?
Nobody knows but the sea

The sun goes down without a Scottie in sight
Until the afternoon, the fourth of June he came to light
And now we're always whistling a tune
About a man who was in love

Why did he go?
What could it be?
Nobody knows but the sea

Week 2- But The Sea

**You're listening to part of a weekly songwriting challenge I participate in with some other songwriting friends. Each week every participant must write a song containing a given word or phrase. The most fun part is listening to everyone's different interpretations, but here you can at least listen to my contributions.**

WEEK 3
Challenge: "tigerfish"

Tigerfish

I had a nasty dream last night
And oh, it gave me such a fright
I was swimming with a creature truly most obscene

Every time I tried to escape
The current took me back his way
Moving closer to this terrifying looking thing

Striped and prowling like a tiger
Teeth as sharp as one too
But instead of paws, he used his fins
To follow me, his prey

He swallowed me with just one bite
I had to stay in there all night
I was living in a creature truly most obscene

In the morning I could escape
Simply by being awake
I wonder when I go to sleep tonight
If I will still be living in a tigerfish

Week 3- Tigerfish

**You're listening to part of a weekly songwriting challenge I participate in with some other songwriting friends. Each week every participant must write a song containing a given word or phrase. The most fun part is listening to everyone's different interpretations, but here you can at least listen to my contributions.**

WEEK 4
Challenge: "save me"

60 Days, Maybe More

60 days, maybe more
Since I've seen the fuzzy floor
Powder white is all I know
The beauty faded long ago

I think it was day 33

It's so hard to remain grateful
In the midst of the hardest winter
That you've known

I need to feel the sun on my feet
I need to know that flowers do grow
But more than these, I need you to save me
From myself and the hardness in my soul
From the selfishness that builds up
With the snow

Save me from my human tendencies
Please

Week 4- 60 Days, Maybe More

**You're listening to part of a weekly songwriting challenge I participate in with some other songwriting friends. Each week every participant must write a song containing a given word or phrase. The most fun part is listening to everyone's different interpretations, but here you can at least listen to my contributions.**

WEEK 5
Challenge: "rose yellow moon"

The Coyote and the Church

What could this creature be?
A brown coyote
Ventured from the wilderness
By a rose-yellow moon

To the church, to the church

A desperate final plea
To save him from his misery
Disease of the flesh, cold to the bone
And left all alone

"We could kill him," someone said,
"What difference would it make?"
But others found him worthy to be healed

To the church, to the church

My desperate final plea
Save me from my misery
Disease of my flesh, spirit hard as bone
Don't leave me all alone

Am I worthy to be healed?

Week 5- The Coyote And The Church

**You're listening to part of a weekly songwriting challenge I participate in with some other songwriting friends. Each week every participant must write a song containing a given word or phrase. The most fun part is listening to everyone's different interpretations, but here you can at least listen to my contributions.**

WEEK 6
Challenge: "darken with kindness"

Moving Day

No more paper chain, the day had arrived
We were more than ready for the seven hour drive
Saddled up and ready to go
We'll wake up in a new place tomorrow

We were ready to get out of there
Ready to move on
Ready to see what was next

You drove the truck and I followed in our car
Charleigh in the backseat, my brave companion
A cloudless sky, bright sun to show the way
Across four of the great Midwest states

We were starting to get out of there
Starting to move on
Starting to see what was next

When we reached it, it was lovely
The daylight never seemed to darken
With kindness we were received
Into the new place we'd call home

Week 6- Moving Day

**You're listening to part of a weekly songwriting challenge I participate in with some other songwriting friends. Each week every participant must write a song containing a given word or phrase. The most fun part is listening to everyone's different interpretations, but here you can at least listen to my contributions.**

I was really struggling today with a topic for this song. The phrase "chase my heart" made me want to try my hand at a teenage break-up/love song, then my husband came in the room and jokingly suggested I write about coffee. Well it turns out that I really do have a love/hate relationship with coffee because of a caffeine sensitivity which makes me feel awful after I drink it (my heart races, like it's chasing me!). But my love for coffee is stronger than its ill-effects on me, yet I know I need to just quit it altogether...I FEEL A BREAK UP SONG COMING ON.....

WEEK 7
Challenge: "chase my heart"

Dear Joe Letter

Countless times before
I said we'd be no more
Ooh, but you keep drawing me back

You're no good for me
I think we can agree
You taste so sweet, but you always leave me bitter

And once again, I'm running from you...

...Chasing my heart, chasing my heart
I'm forfeiting this race
I'm giving up the chase

Couldn't we pretend
That we're just good friends
Ooh, you don't have to say you love me

Can't I get a fix without you...

...Chasing my heart, chasing my heart
I'm forfeiting this race
I'm giving up the chase

Chasing my heart, chasing my heart
We're through for good, I know
At least until tomorrow


(The real challenge next week will be getting any of you to take me seriously again.)

Week 7- Dear Joe Letter

**You're listening to part of a weekly songwriting challenge I participate in with some other songwriting friends. Each week every participant must write a song containing a given word or phrase. The most fun part is listening to everyone's different interpretations, but here you can at least listen to my contributions.**

This will be my last contribution to the songwriting game for now. I'm hoping to join again during the summer when I have a little more time.

WEEK 8
Challenge: "sour house"

Sour House

A place where life can grow
Untouched by the wind or the snow
A flower's paradise
A life-size terrarium

But underneath this spherical glass ceiling
Humidity is thick with a concealing feeling

Roots are shallow and splayed
The blossoms droop and frail
Choke and smile for the guests
To teach them the natural things

That we can make anything grow where we want
A sour house fills with the stench of control

Look at what we can do
Look at what we can do

Hannah MacMillan 2

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