{"id":8169,"date":"2021-03-30T14:14:23","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T19:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/?p=8169"},"modified":"2022-04-05T16:03:54","modified_gmt":"2022-04-05T21:03:54","slug":"see-you-on-the-other-side-wins-great-american-song-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/see-you-on-the-other-side-wins-great-american-song-contest\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;See You On the Other Side&#8221; Wins Great American Song Contest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My week&#8217;s suddenly going pretty well. Like anyone who writes songs, I occasionally enter song contests because&#8230;well, you never know, right? And songs are painfully subjective, so I&#8217;ve always shrugged whenever nothing&#8217;s come out of them. Last year, however, <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/Xtan46myn7I\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8220;Starlite Drive-In Saturday Night&#8221;<\/a> was a finalist in the Americana category of the Great American Song Contest. I figured it might be worthwhile to enter a tune or two again this year.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.greatamericansong.com\/winners.php\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-8183 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/award-winner-winners-page-150x130.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"130\" \/><\/a>And&#8230;my latest single, &#8220;See You On the Other Side&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.greatamericansong.com\/hall-of-fame2020.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WON<\/a> this year in the contest&#8217;s Singer\/Songwriter category. I got notice last week that it was a finalist and received the official email yesterday. I could not be happier or grateful.<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/w1akA6QY1V0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/center><br \/>\nMy cowriting pal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johncirillo.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">John Cirillo<\/a> and I wrote this back in the early days of the COVID19 pandemic (circa April 2020). Thinking it was too specific, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/behind-the-song-see-you-on-the-other-side\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">it&#8217;s a song I almost didn&#8217;t record<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I was told from the president of the contest that they expectedly received a LOT of pandemic and sheltering-in-place songs, but this one bubbled to the top (out of nearly 400 entries in its category). His comment was, &#8220;your song approached the topic with humor and optimism, much like a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johnprine.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">John Prine<\/a> song.&#8221; And that was EXACTLY the vibe we were going for, particularly since Prine is a hero of mine and we sadly lost him last year.<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UzpR2I1WkcY\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/center><br \/>\nAs way-cool icing on the cake, two songs from my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/music\/#heykarma\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8220;Hey Karma&#8221; CD<\/a> also placed as this year: The title track,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/michaelgaither.bandcamp.com\/track\/hey-karma\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8220;Hey Karma,&#8221;<\/a> (another John Cirillo co-write) in the Americana category and\u00a0 &#8220;Little Angels Everywhere&#8221; in the Adult-Contemporary category. Why the heck I entered a song under &#8220;Adult-Contemporary&#8221; is beyond me, but hey, if it isn&#8217;t broke&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Color me grateful and happy. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.michaelgaither.com%2Fhome%2Fsee-you-on-the-other-side-wins-great-american-song-contest%2F&amp;layout=standard&amp;&amp;width=800&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:800px;height:30px;margin-top:5px;\"><\/iframe>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My week&#8217;s suddenly going pretty well. Like anyone who writes songs, I occasionally enter song contests because&#8230;well, you never know, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8169"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8475,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8169\/revisions\/8475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}