Not too far back, American Songwriter announced the category winners of the 2024 Song Contest. With genre entries ranging from Americana to Latin Music, the acclaimed panel of judges had a lot of material to sort through. Though, after much work, they did it! That being said, here are the first and second place category winners of American Songwriter’s 2024 song contest.
Congratulations to every category winner and second-place holder! To learn about the inspirations behind the songs from the artists that walked away from the competition victorious, keep reading, as these are all the first and second place winners from the 2024 American Songwriter Song Contest.
Big thanks to all the judges, winners, and contestants who entered the contest. American Songwriter’s 2025 Song Contest is currently underway. To enter, click here.
Category Winners:
Americana First Place Winner:
“Bones” By Mark Shiiba
When I was a kid, my family took a trip to Rome. We wandered into a chapel where the walls were lined with the bones of dead monks, and there was a sign that read: “What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be.”
It must’ve really resonated with me in the moment, because years later, in a season of grieving the loss of my mother and wrestling with the reality of our mortality, those words came rushing back. They became my mantra, and that mantra became a song called Bones: a song imagined from the perspective of the dead monks, urging us not to forget that we are still alive.
Americana Second Place Winner:
“Everything In Between” By Billie Zizi Watchel
This song is about a love lost and the freedom and suffering that comes from transformation. The song explores the multidimensional aspects of experiencing loss and the immovable truth of transience. I was working with imperfect rhyme and just messing around with words.
A bunch of friends had gone through breakups, and I was thinking about the multifaceted nature of reality. How simultaneously the breakups were challenging but also beautiful and freeing. How they gave it their best shot, which ultimately is all you can ever do in life, and the loss of that relationship led them to a new and beautiful and unexpected delight.
Blues First Place Winner:
“I Can’t Make You Understand” By Eric Fortaleza, Natalie Layne, Summer Joy (Moga Family Band)
“I Can’t Make You Understand” was written about knowing your value and standing up for your worth. You should never have to beg for your value, and when you see yourself starting to, this is the reminder that whoever you are dealing with, YOU CAN’T MAKE THEM UNDERSTAND! It’s either they do, or they don’t. Stand up for your worth, always.
Blues Second Place Winner:
“Singing To A Different Song” By Pedro Henrique Cordeiro (Pedro)
I wanted to have a vocal oriented song on the album, as opposed to guitar, and when i was workshopping what I wanted to do, I landed on this character of someone who’s been wronged, but isn’t wasting any time mourning, but moving on to the next song, so to speak.
Children’s Music First Place Winner:
“Harmony” By Harold Simmons, Aura Simmons, Deanna Hawkins (Fyütch)
“Harmony” is a Daddy-Daughter duet by Fyütch and Aura V singing about both musical harmony and harmony amongst people. 7-year-old Aura shines on her verse: “Peace, positivity, love, and empathy. This is the recipe for life in harmony.” This metaphor resonates with young listeners learning to work together and cooperate. The message of peaceful coexistence during social tension and environmental turmoil is both timely and timeless.
Children’s Music Second Place Winner:
“What Love Can Look Like” By Gracie Nash, Emma Jayne Seslowsky (Miss Tutti And The Fruity Band)
Emma and I wanted to create a children’s song that amplified the LGBTQIA+ community. In What Love Can Look Like we explored the different ways people love each other. The goal was to make all families feel seen and included when listening to the song.
Christian Music First Place Winner:
“Forever Holy” By Montel Moore, Terrian Woods, and David Spencer (Terrian)
“Forever Holy” was a collaborative effort with Terrian and David Spencer. Jesus was the sole inspiration. The story of His life and death was poured into this song.
Christian Music Second Place Winner:
“Little Light” By Grace Baldridge (Semler)
I wrote “Little Light” about finding God in the people around me during a time when I didn’t want to be alive. It’s about finding reasons to stay and aspiring to become a resilient person. It’s also a reference to the Sunday school song, “This Little Light Of Mine”.
Country First Place Winner:
“5 O’Clock Shadow” By Natalie Otto, Philip Morgan
I was in the middle of a divorce and was walking around my kitchen one morning when the sun was hitting the floor just right, and I was replaying a conversation I had had earlier with my ex about his drinking. I started thinking about people with drinking problems and the fact that it doesn’t matter what time of day it is, that “shadow” always seems to follow them, whether they want it to or not.
It’s kind of a spin-off of Alan Jackson’s and Jimmy Buffett’s song “It’s Five O’clock Somewhere” only when I took this idea to Phil, we turned it into a plea for someone to come and rescue them from the drinking because they truly wanted their shadow to disappear – they just didn’t know where to start.
Country Second Place Winner:
“God & Good News” By Jake Bush, Jesse Raub Jr, Jacob Boyd
We watched the movie The Blind and was motivated to write something positive for the world. The world is lacking positivity and the love of Jesus, and how great the world could be if we loved Jesus more.
EDM First Place Winner:
“Goodbye” By Sara Costa Sanches, Genemo (Saralia)
“Goodbye” was born out of real, personal heartbreak. We wanted to capture the emotional moment when you finally let go of a toxic relationship—not just with sadness, but with strength. It’s about reclaiming your power, finding closure, and turning pain into something uplifting.
EDM Second Place Winner:
“Nice Things” By Jarrod Allen (THE MOB)
The inspiration behind Nice Things came from that moment you realize you can’t take it with you. It’s about letting go, living in the now, and not feeling guilty about enjoying what you’ve earned. Sometimes you just have to spend the cash and enjoy the nice things while you can.
Folk/Singer-Songwriter First Place Winner:
“What A Ghost” By Isaac Sign
I made “What A Ghost” a few years ago at a time that I felt lost as to what I was doing. I had just lost my job at a music company due to major layoffs, couldn’t find another job to save my life, owed a lot of money, and was living close to my hometown in a state of defeat. Naturally, I took an evening to make a song out of it.
There’s something about making a new song that makes everything else going on feel like it’s happening for a better reason. It’s definitely a form of therapy. I sat down alone in my studio and wrote this song in about 45 minutes, really trying to put everything as simply and to the point as possible. The line “Oh, I miss the time I was running toward the light,” felt like one of the simplest ways to put my feelings into words at the time.
Folk/Singer-Songwriter Second Place Winner:
“Romanticizing Poets” By Theo Kandel
“Romanticizing Poets” is a song about love and death and turning 27 in a world that seems to expect excellence long before you’re 30. The “27 Club” has been mythologized, romanticized, and celebrated, even as the infamous age at which so many bright young stars have tragically died. Too many people (myself included) have exalted these stories as legends while forgetting the very real people with very real issues behind them. I’ve always wondered if my music would be better if I was more tortured, more troubled, more mystical.
I use so much of my own life in my songs that I often feel like I’m fictionalizing it, and I don’t want to lose the humanity of it all in my journey for success. The song is set in Paris, and the lyrics make references to things like the White Bics supposedly found in the pockets of the musicians that died young (fake), or “Saturn Return,” the astrological transit that occurs when the planet Saturn returns to the same ecliptic longitude that it occupied at the moment of a person’s birth (about 29 years, taken from Wikipedia). We often whitewash the more unsavory parts of a person’s life to keep them on a pedestal that we’ve posthumously constructed, and that does as much damage as forgetting them in the first place.
Hip-Hop/Rap First Place Winner:
“Who The Man” By Jessica Carter (J.Lauryn)
I wanted to make a song celebrating the power of women in the music business, a song celebrating myself and my accomplishments. It’s hard to make your dreams come true in the world of music, but I’ve always believed in my talent and with hard work, persistence, & the right timing, I was able to make my dreams come true by staying true to myself.
Hip-Hop/Rap Second Place Winner:
“OUT OF MY MIND” By Jahque McCaskill (J. 1. DA)
Internal war between pain and purpose.
Indie First Place Winner:
“you.” By Marlhy Murphy, Michael Kamerman (Marlhy)
I was at a place in my life and career where I felt like I was stuck in a routine and wasn’t moving forward in the way I wanted. Through this song, I learned that obstacles will always try to get in the way of your motion and can take different forms, including people.
For me, I realized that I had let these obstacles take over and was letting anything and everything around me make choices so I wouldn’t feel the responsibility or shame if it didn’t work out. This song is about recognizing what’s in the way, which may actually just be yourself. Since forcing myself to become more decisive and confident in my own instincts, I have felt more fulfilled and passionate for the first time in years, and this song truly encapsulates what that feels like for me.
Indie Second Place Winner:
“Don’t Know Why I Love” By Gregory Ackerman
The song is about trying to put all your eggs in one basket, but ultimately it all falling through. A few years back, I had dreams of grandeur in a new romantic interest, and when it didn’t work out, I wrote this song to try to put a pin in a feeling I felt very strongly: “I don’t know why I even try to love when it always goes this way…”
I wanted to make it upbeat, though, in order to infuse the miserable feelings with a sense of hope. Luckily, I don’t feel unlovable anymore, and that sense of hope that I infused into that song was the real through line that carried with me.
Instrumental First Place Winner:
“Time Is Not What You Think It Is” By Ryan David Green
My instrumentals try to capture feelings, and to make people feel things they might not even be able to identify. To me, this song is about wrestling with time… about our will versus the cosmos. The idea is that we can either spend our lives fighting against it, or we can let go, let it carry us, and try to work in tandem with it. There’s a sort of back and forth happening in the song but you’ll hear as the song progresses there’s an eventual letting go, an exhale, and sense of peace.
Instrumental Second Place Winner:
“Moon” By Serge Lacasse (Prof. Lacasse)
As its title suggests, the piece seeks to follow the emotional journey inspired by observing the Moon. Musically, it transitions from one tonality to another using a simple technique: the final note of the melody in one harmonic field becomes the first note of the next. The Moon, ever present no matter what we do, weaves a gentle, unifying thread throughout the piece.
Jazz First Place Winner:
“I Enjoy You” By Claude Kelly, Chuck Harmony (Louis York)
Honoring the song craft of jazz greats that’s come before us.
Jazz Second Place Winner:
“These Are the Memories” By Emma Campbell, Ryan Mondak (Emmaline)
“These Are the Memories” reflects on how the changing seasons often mirror the different phases of our lives. It’s about coming to terms with the fact that not every season brings happiness — some are filled with grief, loneliness, or feeling stuck. Yet, it’s the hope for a brighter future and the beautiful memories we’ve created that give us comfort and carry us through to warmer days ahead.
Latin Music First Place Winner:
“Una Vida Pasada” By Juan Munoz (Avi)
The song began as a romantic ballad, exploring the depth of a connection so profound that words weren’t needed to understand each other. But it also uncovers raw pain—when ego and mistakes push away the one you love most.
In one verse, the protagonist confesses: “I want to cut off my hands, even if I die, because I hate them, because they let you go,” capturing the depth of self-inflicted guilt and sorrow. Over time, the song evolved into a Latin rhythm, with salsa becoming the perfect expression of the emotional contradiction of wanting to dance and cry at the same time.
Latin Music Second Place Winner:
“Una Noche Mas” By Josi C
I wrote it at a time when I was processing what it feels like to crave just one more night with someone who I had just made a connection with, despite them being emotionally unavailable.
The melody came to me first, with a vibe that emanated with a careful balance of anxiety and fear of loss with the struggle of remaining confidence of what one believed was theirs.
Lyrically, I wanted to explore that push and pull — the mix of vulnerability and desire. There’s power in asking for another night, knowing it might be the last. It’s a song for anyone who’s ever replayed memories, knowing they can’t go back, but still wishing they could relieve something just one more time.
I think the emotion in “Una Noche Más” resonates because it’s honest. It’s not about perfection or happy endings — it’s about that one night that could change everything, or nothing at all.
Pop First Place Winner:
“Capture Me” By Thomas Stringfellow
I wrote “Capture Me” after reflecting on a hard breakup. We fell for each other really hard but didn’t have the structures and foundations in life to make things last, so we became pretty toxic with patterns to force things to work or self-sabotage. Looking back in a healthier place, I realized we were so “captured” by each other that we broke each other in an effort to hold on.
Pop Second Place Winner:
“Eternity” By Greg Shilling
The inspiration behind my winning song “Eternity” is the realization that you want and need someone forever, until the end of time.
R&B/Soul First Place Winner:
“Twelve Out of Ten” By Gabe Baker, Shane Weisman
There was a girl I really liked, and it didn’t work out the way that I hoped it would.
R&B/Soul Second Place Winner:
“Unapologetically” By Sharin Attamimi, Calvin Bennett
My song “Unapologetically” is about a love I knew was bad for me, but couldn’t let go of, no matter how much I tried. Funnily enough, I walked out of the studio after finishing the song and met my current husband, and ended up healing from that old, toxic love!
Rock First Place Winner:
“Lemon Bars” By Noah Brandt (Jazzmen Suites)
When first moving to Ojai in the throes of a psychedelic-inspired adventure through the woods, I came upon some lemons. I filled my shirt, took them home, and made lemon bars. Sitting outside looking at the mountains that night by the fire, the song appeared to me. I feel a deep joy for life exists in this song; the message feels simple, yet true.
Rock Second Place Winner:
“cold september” By Christina Munsey
“Cold September” captures the quiet, emotional tension of navigating through a hard season of change. Heavily inspired by the haunting, minimalist energy of 80s Berlin rock, particularly Lebanon Hanover’s “Gallowdance,” the song blends melancholy with hope, finding light in the smallest moments despite the cold. With its dark, introspective vibe and gritty, atmospheric sound, “Cold September” reflects the raw beauty of embracing the hard times while searching for warmth amidst the chill of fall.
Teen First Place Winner:
“Billboard City” By Summer Brennan
“Billboard City” is a song I wrote during a pivotal moment when I chose to stop letting others’ opinions define me. For a long time, I was overly conscious of criticism, but writing this track was my way of saying, “I don’t care anymore.” It’s an honest anthem of self-acceptance, and I hope it inspires others to live authentically and celebrate who they are.
Teen Second Place Winner:
“Stay” By Harrison Goodell
Graduating high school was the first major shift in my life. I had deep roots in my hometown and a strong connection to my family, which made me dependent on familiarity. When the stability of youth was suddenly challenged by adulthood, I felt compelled to write. “Stay” is an ode to my youth, my family, and the house I grew up in. It captures that ache to freeze time — the longing to hold onto a moment, even when you know you can’t.
World Music First Place Winner:
“Emancipation” By Caleb Hart
The history/origin of Trinidad & Tobago’s “Carnival”. I now reside in Victoria, Canada, and in August 2024, we celebrated iLand Fest, the first ever Caribbean Carnival on Vancouver Island. That’s where I met Jayden Brown and was so inspired by our culture arriving so evidently in a place so distant from it. I saw every age, shade of skin, body type, and more celebrating freedom. Thus, EMANCIPATION was born.
World Music Second Place Winner:
“Northern Wind” By Pawarin Phiken (Lanna New Decade (band))
Lanna New Decade, or “Naw Lanna”, is a form of new traditional music rooted in the folk traditions of Northern Thailand. This contemporary reinterpretation features entirely traditional instruments and musical elements drawn from the upper northern region of Thailand, extending as far as southern China which we have been being connected for a long time.
While no Western instruments are used, the compositions are innovatively arranged with both vertical and horizontal harmonic structures. Traditional Lanna instruments are carefully orchestrated to cover the full range of tonal registers, resulting in entirely new pieces of music that honor the spirit of the region while pushing its sonic boundaries forward.
2024 Song Contest Winner Announcement Feature Image via American Songwriter
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