March/April 2019 Lyric Contest Winners

Congratulations to all of our March/April 2019 winners! Click here to enter the May/June 2019 contest.

1st Place
“Mary Dyer”
by Todd Hearon
Exeter, NH

I came here with the reckoning done
And I saw the scales sink into the sun
And the fields were heavy with the heresy grain
And a lone tree leaned and chuckled my name

Oh up in Boston
It’s a hard falling from grace
Oh up in Boston
It’s a dark professing place

Well they welcomed me into the fold
And they bound my arms my hands to hold
They kissed my cheek my tongue to check
And knitted me a pretty noose around my neck

Oh up in Boston
It’s a hard falling from grace
Oh up in Boston
It’s a dark professing place

They tied my skirts and covered my face
My house of blood and bone to raze
My body you kill, my spirit flies freed
As the big wind taking a dandelion seed

Spin my shroud when I come to die
With a thread too bright for the magistrate’s eye
No tongue can tell nor eye can see
That diamond dangling from the gallowman’s tree

Oh up in Boston
It’s a hard falling from grace
Oh up in Boston
It’s a dark professing place

Such a dark professing place

2nd Place
“The Calling”
by Arielle Silver
North Hollywood, CA

Freight train’s in the distance
Hear that whistle blow
See it slipping like a serpent
Beneath the sunset glow
Further out, the clouds
Are building up a storm,
Throwing bolts of lightning
They say it’s gonna pour
And someone’s calling someone
I can hear the neighbor’s ring
But no one’s calling me

I turn up all the lamps
Like a lighthouse on the bay
And tip an empty bottle
To another lonely day
Off the porch in the clover
Beyond the throw of light
Fireflies are blinking
The coming of the night
Like a thousand tiny torches
On a broken down marquee
No one’s calling me

That train knows where it’s going
If you make it back around
I’ll be sitting in the porch light
On the lonely side of town

Closer now, the clouds
This storm is gonna pour
It’s rumbling with thunder
Like the coming of the Lord
And someone’s calling someone
I can almost hear that choir sing
But no one’s calling me
No one’s calling me

3rd Place
“If I Hadn’t Needed Saving”
by Joseph Cain
Richmond, KY

Sometimes I take a stroll down
Memory lane and I slow down
At the place where we met
That first night

Just a friend of a friend
I didn’t know what we’d become then
Had a hundred other problems
On my mind, and

If I hadn’t needed saving
You might’a just walked right by
If I’d been a better person
If I’d lived a better life

If I didn’t need an angel
To pick me up and dust me off
If I hadn’t needed saving
I’d be lost

As I look around today
At this amazing life I have
From the outside looking in
I’ve got it all

This house you made into a home
That little boy who calls you Mom
It’d be so easy to forget
Where I came from, but

If I hadn’t needed saving
You might’a just walked right by
If I’d been a better person
If I’d lived a better life

If I didn’t need an angel
To pick me up and dust me off
If I hadn’t needed saving
I’d be lost

So every little tear I cried
Just begging God to send me a sign
Every broken heart
And hell-burnt scar
Before you saved my life
Was all worth it
Oh, it was worth it, cause

If I hadn’t needed saving
You might’a just walked right by
If I’d been a better person
If I’d lived a better life

If I didn’t need an angel
To pick me up and dust me off
Or if God had thought his best one
Just wasn’t worth the cost
If I was on the straight and narrow
And our paths had never crossed
If I hadn’t needed saving
I’d be lost

‘Cause you don’t meet angels on the road to heaven
No, you don’t meet angels on the road to heaven
No, you don’t meet angels on the road to heaven
God puts ‘em where he needs them
And sometimes we don’t see them
Right between hell and people like me

4th Place
“Sleepy Town”
by Daniel Senie
Charlestown, NH

At the general store you can get
Dog-house roses and cigarettes
Rods and reels and fishing nets
Movie rentals and snacks for pets
In this sleepy little town

This old town that time forgot
With its winding roads and flower pots
Neighbors who never lock their doors
But the trains don’t stop here, anymore

At the general store it all goes down
Social hub of this small town
Where the gossip goes around
And policeman makes his daily rounds
In this sleepy little town

This old town that time forgot
With its winding roads and flower pots
Neighbors who never lock their doors
But the trains don’t stop here, anymore

At the general store you’ll find it all
Snow shoes hanging from the wall
Gas your car, rakes for the fall
What you need, though it’s no mall
In this sleepy little town

Highway went by years ago
Factory moved down to Mexico
Quarries closed and motel too
Quiet settles like the morning dew

But the general store has closed its doors
Dust collects on the creaking floors
Can’t shop in this town no more
And we don’t know what’s in store
For this sleepy little town

This old town that time forgot
With its winding roads and flower pots
Neighbors who never lock their doors
But the trains don’t stop here, anymore
In this sleepy little town

Honorable Mention

“Thought I Knew”
by Dan Tappan
Boxborough, MA

“Civil Wars”
by Alicia Cook
Newark, NJ

“The Leaving Kind”
by Alicia Cook
Newark, NJ

“Dying to Meet You”
by Tom Storns
Largo, FL

“Shirley Temple”
by Pete Eastmure
Toronto, ON

“Daddy Just Because”
Pamela Steward
Goetzville, MI

“Mess of My Own Making”
Kaelan Ward
Chicago, IL

“Humboldt County”
Gordon Glantz
Blue Bell, PA

“Water Wars”
George Maddox
Pensacola, FL

“I Know This Man”
Matthew Soileau
Spring, Texas

Lyric Contest Winner Todd Hearon Discusses His Prize Lyric “Mary Dyer,” Songwriting Vs. Poetry, And More