When singer-songwriter Maya Malkin from Montréal and songwriter/producer Hugh Mackie from Victoria got together for a SOCAN Song Camp Monday in Toronto, they ended up writing a great song in one day. That collaboration, “Hostage,” which Malkin released on April 17, 2020, has now become the first SOCAN Song of the Week that was co-written at a Song Camp Monday.

“Two of four people couldn’t make the session that day, so it just ended up being Hugh and I,” says Malkin. “Things flowed really naturally and quickly between us. I had a few voice notes on my phone, I showed him some options. This one resonated, and he immediately pulled out a keyboard. Lyrics, melody, and production just really started flowing from there. The time constraint was super-cool, because I’m naturally an indecisive person, but the pressure of having to show the song to some of the SOCAN staff at the end of the day really fueled a fire in me. I wanted to prove I could do it! I would love to do it again. It was so much fun!”

In response to the self-isolation and quarantine imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, SOCAN has taken its Song Camp Mondays online, facilitating multiple virtual co-writing sessions per week (as opposed to our previous one-every-two-weeks, in-person version) across the country, and in the U.S. These Virtual Song Camp Monday sessions – each one a full-day co-writing session connecting three SOCAN members at a time – will bring together participants from across North America, via online meeting platforms, from the comfort of their own homes and/or home studios. You can apply to participate in one here.