Every year Scholastic holds a songwriting contest for middle school
students. The featured artists for 1998 was Hanson.
Note: Zac explains how they selected the tracks for Middle
of Nowhere.
Hanson personally selected the winner for the
Scholastic contest. Here's your chance to take a look at a few of the entries that
visitors to this page submitted to the contest. Although none of my own students entered
the contest, a few brave songwriters agreed to have their work published here. Check them
out, just as the bands did: Entries. Thanks to all the
contributors!
The contest
material from Scholastic included a tape. On it, the band discusses their inspiration
behind "With You in Your Dreams," "Man from Milwaukee" and
"Yearbook." I have condensed pieces of this discussion in the links below. The
guys also discuss the songwriting process. They're encouraging and yet, it's obvious that
they take the creative process very seriously. For awhile they decided to try to write a
song every day, "just for the heck of it." Don't despair, because sometimes you
come up with some really cool ideas, but sometimes you come up with nothing. That's
normal. The only difference is that sometimes the band will be singing a song and they'll
say to someone, "Don't you know that song?" and when that person says,
"No," then one of them will realize, "Wait, I wrote that song." Whoa!
The contest
material from Scholastic included a tape. On it, the band discusses their inspiration
behind "With You in Your Dreams," "Man from Milwaukee" and
"Yearbook." I have condensed pieces of this discussion in the links below. The
guys also discuss the songwriting process. They're encouraging and yet, it's obvious that
they take the creative process very seriously. For awhile they decided to try to write a
song every day, "just for the heck of it." Don't despair, because sometimes you
come up with some really cool ideas, but sometimes you come up with nothing. That's
normal. The only difference is that sometimes the band will be singing a song and they'll
say to someone, "Don't you know that song?" and when that person says,
"No," then one of them will realize, "Wait, I wrote that song." Whoa!