A Q&A With the Heart Toppers Song Contest Promotion Winner, Grace Schweizer
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Grace Schweizer won the Heart Toppers Song Contest promotion with “A Song for You”, a song inspired by her first relationship at 17. She says it captures the small moments of that summer and the feeling of experiencing young love, and that sharing the song has given her confidence to put more of her music out into the world.
Schweizer began songwriting in seventh grade after moving to a new town, using music to process change and emotion. She chose this song because it came from her own experience and felt especially honest; her brother contributed the guitar. Inspired by Phoebe Bridgers and Briston Maroney, she hopes to write and release new music with her brother after graduating from college.
- Grace Schweizer won with “A Song for You”.
- The song reflects her first relationship at 17.
- The win has encouraged her to share more music.
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Songwriting can turn personal experiences into music that other people can relate to. Grace Schweizer says she began writing songs in seventh grade, after moving to a new town, as a way to work through change and emotion.
“A Song for You” draws on Schweizer’s first relationship, when she was 17, and the small moments of that summer. Her brother played guitar on the song, which she chose because it felt especially honest to her.
The Heart Toppers promotion connected her music with a wider audience. Schweizer has said sharing the song gave her confidence to release more of her work, and she hopes to make new music with her brother after college.
Full account
Grace Schweizer won American Songwriter’s Heart Toppers Song Contest promotion with “A Song for You”, a song she wrote at 17 about her first relationship. She said it grew out of the small moments she shared with her then-boyfriend over one summer. For Schweizer, the song preserves the excitement and detail of an experience she was living through for the first time.
Schweizer began writing songs in seventh grade after moving to a new town. Music had long been part of her life, but writing gave her a way to work through the feelings brought on by the move. She has continued to use it as a means of expression, though she said she had rarely shared her work publicly before entering the promotion. She submitted “A Song for You” because, unlike some of the stories she has imagined in other songs, it came directly from her own life. She also credited her brother’s guitar work as a major part of the track.
The win surprised Schweizer and gave her more confidence in her songwriting. After years of creating largely for her own enjoyment, she said it mattered to know that someone else had connected with a song she had written. In the interview, she named Phoebe Bridgers as an influence, admiring the way Bridgers uses precise, personal details that can still resonate with a wider audience.
A separate American Songwriter interview profiles Nathan Chlumsky, winner of the Heart Toppers Lyric Contest promotion for “Love Like a Slow Dance”. His song approaches romance from a different starting point: he said it imagines a lasting relationship he hopes to find, rather than recalling one he has experienced. Chlumsky linked that hope partly to being bullied while growing up. He described a love in which two people can slow down and be present together even as life moves quickly around them. A longtime writer of stories and poems who said he has published 17 books, Chlumsky traced his first serious original song to an idea he had around 1999. He said an honourable mention for that song in another American Songwriter lyric contest encouraged him to keep writing.
Where outlets differ
Both supplied reports are from American Songwriter, so they do not offer differing outlet accounts. They profile different winners in different promotions: the song contest report centres on Schweizer’s memories of a relationship she had, while the lyric contest report centres on Chlumsky’s imagined future relationship and his longer writing history.