What Does It Mean When a Song Is on Hold? Holds vs Exclusive Licenses

When a song is on hold, an artist or someone on their team has asked the writer's side to stop offering it to others while they decide whether to record it. It is a courtesy, not a contract. Nothing is paid and nothing is signed.

Songwriters say the phrase with a mix of joy and dread: "my song is on hold." Here is what it means, how long it lasts, and how it differs from an exclusive license, which does a similar job in writing.

What a hold is

SongTown, a songwriting education site, defines a hold as a request by an artist, or someone who represents the artist, to hold off pitching the song to anyone else while the artist decides whether to record it. In practice, writes SongTown co-founder Marty Dodson, "we generally consider a hold to be granting the artist first right of refusal." The writer's side can keep pitching the song, as long as it is upfront that the song is on hold for someone else.

MusicRow, a Nashville trade publication, calls a Nashville hold a verbal agreement and traces the habit to the mid-1970s, when a producer would phone a publisher and ask them to hold a song before a session.

What a hold is not

• It is not a license. A hold gives you no permission to record or release the song.
• It is not paid. A paid promise to keep an offer open is called an option, and Cornell's Legal Information Institute notes that most option contracts need payment and other formalities to be enforceable. A hold has neither.
• It is not written. MusicRow describes holds as verbal.
• It is not a guarantee. Dodson writes that in a perfect world artists would hold 12 songs and record all 12, but in reality "some of them put 50 or more on hold and record 12."

How long does a hold last?

There is no standard length. The sources give very different answers.

• MusicRow's sources range from "about a month window depending upon how active the artist is" to "songs on hold for 8 months."
• Dodson says an artist may put a song on hold and "not be planning to record for 6-8 months."
• Hypebot's summary of a Shane McAnally interview calls a hold an "oral commitment that the song is in the pack" that can stretch out to a year.
• Songwriter Shelly Peiken remembers holds lasting "until further notice."

If you ask for a hold, ask for an end date. If you grant one, set one. MusicRow quotes a publisher who says the company posts "the date and a termination date when it expires."

Why holds have a mixed reputation

Holds run on trust, and trust wears thin when holds are cheap to give. MusicRow's 2011 report, "Requiem For The Hold," quotes a producer who says, "Nobody honors a hold anymore," and recalls that Chuck Neese told the magazine in 1988, "A hold now has become a definite maybe." One publisher in the piece says it gives one hold per song, never a second or a third.

Waitlist, hold, exclusive: three ways to reserve a song

Here are the three tools side by side, weakest first.

• A waitlist is a Starchild tool. It emails you when a song under exclusive license comes back to the marketplace. It notifies and does not reserve anything.
• A hold is a courtesy. It reserves the song informally. It is free, verbal and open-ended, and it works only while both sides honor it.
• An exclusive license is a purchase. For 3, 6 or 12 months nobody else can license the song, you receive a certificate that names the writers, and you can renew before the end date.

When to use which

• Still deciding? On Starchild you can hear a song in different styles and voices, change its key and tempo live, and sing over the demo vocal before you license it. For many artists that settles the question without any hold.
• Committed, with a date? Buy the exclusive for the window around your release. Our guide to timing an exclusive around your release shows how.
• Song already under someone's exclusive? Join the waitlist and read what to do next.

If you are the songwriter being asked for a hold

The same sources suggest a few habits that keep holds honest.

• Give one hold per song, with an end date.
• Tell the artist if someone else is interested. Dodson's etiquette: ask the artist holding the song whether they plan to cut it. If they are not sure, ask them to release it.
• Put it in an email. A hold is verbal by custom, but a one-line note with the date costs nothing.
• Be careful with the word. Dodson says holds come from the artist's side, meaning a label, producer, manager or the artist, and he warns that songwriter services sometimes use the word to hype people up.

If an artist wants more than a courtesy, you can offer an exclusive license, which pays, is written down and ends on a date. Our guide to what songwriters should weigh before offering an exclusive covers the trade-offs, and you can sell your songs on Starchild.

A short example

Nina asks a writer to hold a song while she finishes her EP. They agree by text, and nobody mentions a date. Four months later a second artist asks about the song. The writer is stuck: say no and lose a possible sale, or say yes and break a promise.

A date in the first message would have settled it. An exclusive license would have put the date, the term and the paper in one place. Nina is a made-up name, but this is how holds go wrong.

Sources

• SongTown: My Song Is on Hold... Help!!!! (Marty Dodson, 2018)
• SongTown: Songwriters, Learn to Speak Music Business (Marty Dodson, 2024)
• MusicRow: Requiem For The Hold (2011)
• Hypebot: Path to a Country Music Hit, Shane McAnally Shares the Songwriter's Experience (2013)
• Shelly Peiken: H-O-L-D, The Forgotten 4 Letter Word
• Cornell Legal Information Institute: Option Contract