congratulations, fawmers!

whether you wrote 1 song or 100 (or even more!), you created something new from your heart that didn't exist in the world before. that's a beautiful thing and worth celebrating. 🤘 🎉 🔥

i woke up this morning to a total song count of 12,673... this is a smidge below last year's morning-after count of 12,791.

however, i think the 1% drop can be entirely explained by this year's new multi-collab feature (for fawmlings: it used to be that the site only supported a single collaborator, so if a song had 3+ contributors some folks would have to post "dummy" songs if they wanted "credit").

here's a graph of historical stats:


more analyses to come in coming days, as well as a few new features to help commenting and zong-busting go a little easier. keep the creativity flowing...

well done again, everyone!

Thank you @burrsettles and @elesimo, and the Distads who quietly beaver away too. This is an amazing creation and an all round Good Place To Be. I know of no other creation engine to match it anywhere on the internet.

WINNER WINNER NEWSONG DINNER!
Yay us!!

Also huge thanks to @burrsettles and the development team in the new site. What a beautiful experience.

Huge thanks to @burrsettles, @elesimo, and all the 'mods' for the support and technical behind the scene voodoo that they do do so well. I look forward to this every year.

Awww... it's over! But so glad I got in, even if late. I was able to finish a particular bear of a song, and... someone asked to cover it! (So flattered!!!) Thanks to everyone.

Huzzah, indeed! Thanks to all for creating music, good vibes, and so much more!

It's weird that I don't have to write songs now for a whole 11 months.

Thanks, @burrsettles and friends. It's been a lovely month and now it is time for COMMENTS. 😀

The only thing that's ending is our time here. The creativity never ends. Go forth and keep writing ✊

My brain is still in FAWM mode! I was cooking breakfast this morning and had a thought and went, "That should be my next song!" HAHAHA. Thank you for bringing the muses back, FAWM!

Thanks to everyone who runs this thing! First year coming over from RPM, I’m really impressed with the community and site. Will be back for the full month next year, this time to hopefully hit the goal 🥅

Yes, thanks to burr, elesimo, the distads, and everyone who makes this place so special.

We did win! All of us! Thanks Burr, Beto, Eric, Jen, all the mods, all the folks who make this place great.

Thanks to all it was an amazing year I am basking in my FAWM glory
Love this place!!!!

Congratulations to everyone. This was my first year, and I'm still surprised that I managed to make it to 14 songs.

Thanks to everyone who make FAWM what it is. Let's hope for a FAWMstock this year!

I'm so glad to have been a part of this collective endeavor and community. This was my first time, but I will be back. Wouldn't miss it for the world.

I missed the last few years but it was good to be back and I didn't miss a beat. Even got to collab again with some of my fave people.

This was an incredible experience. I am a believer! See you all for FAWM '24!

Thank you. Every one of you. I can't even believe I managed to eke out 13 tracks, given how horrible this month has been for me, and I am proud of you all for getting your sterling creativity out there. Serious talent abounds.

Thanks to all the moderators, collaborators and perpetrators!
Time to rest and do some listening.

Like everyone else - a massive thank you for your creation and for the unparalleled creative experience - 1/12 of my life is now dominated by this monster and I’m strapped in and loving the ride!

I've been seeing so many comments all over the forum about how difficult February has been/can be, and I think it's a testament to FAWM actually, because it shows that it's easy to let everything else get in the way of writing new songs! This is my first FAWM, and I signed up exactly for that external motivation and community. I also had a hard month of personal emergencies and illness, and didn't manage to "win," but I wrote more songs than I would have otherwise, which would have been zero. I wrote several more songs than I actually posted, and I will continue to work on them a bit. I'm going to try my best to carry on with making the principal activities of songwriting part of my regular habits, having gotten over the crippling self doubt that stopped me from writing songs for the past 3 or 4 years thanks to FAWM.

Thanks so much to everyone who makes this happen! It's the coolest. I actually gave up on RPM this year. The switch to discord was totally baffling and f*cked the whole thing up. Y'all are the bomb!

To the founding fathers of FAWM: happy 20th anniversary! Who would have thought, eh?
To the class of 2006: Good to see there are still many of us hanging around.
To the FAWM-team of today: Thank you so much for making it possible.
To all FAWMers: Thank you for sharing your music, your lyrics, your thoughts, your art and your kindness.

My sincere thanks to everyone responsible for creating and moderating this community It's a special place.

So grateful to have found this community. I don't think I wrote even close to 14 songs in all of 2022, and now look at me! So inspired and excited for future FAWMs! Congrats to all!

Awesome....Congrats to all who submitted songs and lyrics. I will eagerly look forward to more stats.

WE WIN!!!! Thank you @burrsettles and the whole team for making this the highlight of my year ❤️ I spend so much of February marvelling at incredible music with the knowledge that if it’s a zong I’m possibly the first person in the whole world to ever hear it? It blows my mind! And there is no better community to create things in. My heart is very happy

Thanks to all who help make this happen! I had (and continue to have) an awesome first FAWM. I'm looking forward to more stats too 😄

This website is great and I wish we had one like it for the 100 Day Project. Thanks, everyone, for being so welcoming to newbies!

Totally a win! Last year I finally made it, after several years of thinking "I should do FAWM this year...." usually around March 3rd. Wrote 15 sets of lyrics, no demos. This year, another 15 and 7 demos (perhaps more to come!)... my new workspace is, well, working. Getting me to push hard for that this month, while also busy at the day job AND moving fulltime to my beach house was a trip, but so, so worth it! And today's earworm is one of my own songs for a change (finished the demo around 3:30am...).

I always marvel at how many things have to work right for this all to happen. Good job and thanks to everyone who took care of some of them.

A huge thank you to @burrsettles and the mod team for being the feet pedalling frantically beneath this beautiful swan. With all the fuss and furore in completing the challenge itself, it's easy for us to take for granted all the thankless work that goes into maintaining it. So thank you for all you do. Your efforts have allowed all this magic to happen.

We RAWK!

For so many years I've almost started fawming and now finally made it (even if a bit late) and won! Didn't think I'd make it past ten tracks. Thanks to the amazing community and the mods!

Awesome! I didn't do as much as last year, as life had some hiccups, but I am so happy I got 15 done! Plus, another collaboration, which is amazing. Love this place! I hope it's ok to post the link to my BandCamp release of my FAWM 2023 songs! https://strangetalkinganimals.bandcamp.com/album/fawm-2023-black-friday-connections-ep

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I truly had blast this year. This really is a gamechanger for songwriters. I know I benefit from a fire under my arse.

I'm so thankful that this netoption exists, thanks to all the creators behind the scenes, I've really enjoyed my third fawm and I'm already looking forward to next February. Thanks indeed

Thanks @burrsettles for the data pic! Soooo cool :) Thanks to @elesimo @timfatchen , the other mods, and EVERYONE on this site that makes it such an amazing experience!!

I only finished a handful of songs before my first FAWM in 2009, since then, I've beet part of 12 FAWMs over 15 years. None of it would have happened without you all!

I'm a first-timer. I came with a smidge of trepidation, but figured if I created three or four decent songs I'd be ahead of the game. With the availability of some pretty fine lyricists, I was able to accelerate my writing and end up with 16 new pieces despite travelling for 10 of the 28 days. So huge thanks to the crew that make this platform possible as well as to fellow writers who made this journey special.

Thank you, mods, for making this happen. You make life better! This is a happy place of creativity and comradery. Time to relax and enjoy all the accomplishments. Rest up a little for 50/90. I can't wait!

I didn't know you all had your own site. A friend of a friend type thing. I'm part of the Producer Dojo. But I got 14 tracks this month. Last year I got 4.

Massive SHAWT AWT (yinzer talk) to @burrsettles and the entire mod crew for a fabulous year on a fantastic new site! Looking at that graph...boy did we all have a LOT to say after a year of Covid... Love this community and I love the new features and tools on the site! Big ups for continuing to push FAWM forward and grow as a community and amazing place!

@burrsettles and everyone else involved, I just want to say THANK YOU. The new website is absolutely awesome. As a technical architect and web developer, I'm incredibly impressed by how sleek and user-friendly this website is, not to mention just so well-designed from a visual perspective. This is such a huge service to the songwriting community and now I'm going to go donate some money to ya'll like I should have a while ago 😉

Huge thanks to the moderators (@helenseviltwin, @timfatchen, et al.), the admins (@jendistad has done yeowoman's work) and the developers (@burrsettles and @elesimo) who stood up a new version of the site software with remarkably little apparent pain. And a rousing cheer for all those whose songwriting and comments have worked together to make FAWM such a remarkable, wonderful oasis for creativity.

Ditto @tseaver . Could not have said it better.

A big thank you to @burrsettles and @elesimo, all the mods, and everyone who is a part of the FAWM community. Indeed this is a cool place to be to share and discover; to encourage and grow. It's been a beautiful experience and I wish all of you the very best in your creative endeavors.

Adding my thanks to the entire team. February was a month I used to dread for many reasons, now it is the month I most look forward to.
Una abraçada to everyone involved!

Yes, thank you to the coders and moderators and everyone who worked behind the scenes to make this a great experience. Also thank you to all the people who showed up to make music and listen and comment!

@burrsettles @elesimo This experience has been life changing for me. I was so rusty and insecure getting back into writing and this was like a creative defibrillator to the part of me who lost my love for writing. I am officially in love again. Everything about this experience was perfect. The daily prompts, the skirmishes, the people, the forums. I am SO grateful and would gladly help do anything next year if you need more help or volunteers or support. I am a geek and I love to help. THANK YOU beyond words for this amazing month!!!

I'll say it how many times it's needed: FAWM is the best internet community I was ever a part of. thanks @burrsettles @elesimo & Co.Ltd. for keeping this machine running. I love you, truly.