Northern Michigan Songwriters in the Round

An artists rendition of local singer songwritter Chris Skellenger (artist: Richard Anthony).

Northwest Lower Michigan is home to dozens of talented songwriters as well as plenty of cultural diversity and natural beauty to inspire them. Their words and music reflect directly on our times, our lives and our community. In appreciation of their contribution to our sense of place, we featuring songs and songwriters of the Grand Traverse Region.

These songs are being provided courtesy of the Northern Michigan Songwriters in the Round, an affiliation of over 50 local songwriters who perform on a rotating basis every third Friday night at Horizon Books in Traverse City. For the past nine years, Songwriters in the Round has featured over 100 performances of original music in the Rise & Shine Cafe and three concerts at the Milliken Auditorium.

This month, Your Place is proud to feature a song by Chris Skellenger, a longtime performer both as a solo act and with countless other bands, including Leelanau County's favorites, Third Coast.

Click on the play button below to listen to Saints 

The town hall may not have been hoppin' on this particular day but it sure was during the summer Wedding season.

Saints

Words and Music by Chris Skellenger

"A Wedding at the town hall, the ‘Horndogs at the Tavern and a Polka Dance at St.Rita's....all at once, it was like the triple crown of small town Saturday nights.  The line in this song about defending against Liberal Solutions is, of course, as tongue in cheek as I can possibly get..."

Everyone's dancing in Cedar tonight

the town hall is hoppin',

the tavern is hoppin',

St. Rita's is hoppin',

and the moon's shining bright.

All the drunken smelt dippers

and teenage first kissers

everyone's dancing in Cedar tonight.

Well here's to St. Mary

she's so full of grace

out back in her bathtub

defending the place.

From War and pollution

and liberal solutions

to the everyday problems

of the whole human race.

And here's to St. Gary,

he fixes my Ford.

It's a rusted old pick-em-up

with a dent in the door.

Over hill over dale

and the hot dusty trail

where the wheels grow weary

but the heart never fails.

And Everyone's dancing in Cedar tonight

the town hall is hoppin',

the tavern is hoppin',

St. Rita's is hoppin',

and the moon's shining bright.

All the drunken smelt dippers

and two twisted sisters

everyone's dancing in Cedar tonight.

Here come the monsters

and here comes the clowns

and there go the corn fields

and small country towns.

The fields and the farms

fade away bit by bit

where one man's manure

is another man's...

Everyone's dancing in Cedar tonight

The town hall is hoppin',

The tavern is hoppin',

St. Rita's is hoppin',

And the moon's shining bright.

All the drunken smelt dippers

And teenage first kissers

Everyone's dancin in Cedar tonight.

Yeah, everyone's dancing in Cedar tonight.