-Here at "The Tonight Show," we love songs,
and we especially love songs written by our audience members
in under an hour.
That's right.
It's time for "Battle of the Instant Songwriters."
Here we go.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-♪ Something song, and I'm singing a song ♪
♪ And I'm writing a song about another song ♪
-Oh, yeah.
Welcome to "Battle of the Instant Songwriters."
Before the show, we went through our great audience,
our lovely audience, and we picked out two people
who said they were musicians.
We don't know if they are.
But we gave them each a made-up song title
and gave them an hour
to write an original song based on that title.
Here's a shot of them practicing backstage minutes ago.
There you go.
I can't wait to see what they came up with,
so let's meet them right now.
Come on over, guys.
Welcome. [ Cheers and applause ]
Nice to see you. ♪♪
Nice to see you. Welcome to the show.
Welcome to the show. How are you?
-Good. -Alright, here we go.
Contestant number 1, what is your name,
and where are you from?
-My name's Marcia Belsky, and I'm from Brooklyn, New York.
-Yeah, Brooklyn! [ Cheers and applause ]
Come on! Marcia Belsky.
Marcia, what was the title that was given to you?
-It was "Scrolling Through TikTok on Thanksgiving Day."
-Yeah, that's right.
I feel like a lot of people will be doing that.
"Scrolling Through TikTok on Thanksgiving Day."
What instrument will you be playing?
-I'm doing piano.
-Oh, I love the piano. Alright, good.
Alright, why don't you go over and get ready,
get inspired, get set, and get ready to hear...
[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪
And now, ladies and gentlemen,
here to perform the world premiere of
the soon-to-be classic
"Scrollin' TikTok on Thanksgiving Day,"
it's Marcia Belsky.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-♪ Last year this time, I was so lonely at the holidays ♪
♪ But this year, I'll be sitting right across
from everyone I love ♪
♪ As I scroll TikTok on Thanksgiving Day ♪
♪ Scrollin' TikTok on Thanksgiving Day ♪
♪ Watching couples who hate each other
pull dangerous pranks like ♪
♪ Watch me scare my pregnant wife, okay ♪
♪ Now your baby's on its way ♪
♪ Scrollin' TikTok on Thanksgiving Day ♪
♪ A 12-year-old tarot reader
said love's coming my way ♪
♪ I'm in community here with the tweens on TikTok, baby ♪
♪ Scrollin' TikTok on Thanksgiving Day ♪
♪ I'm so thankful for my phone ♪
♪ And I guess also my family ♪
[ Cheers and applause ]
-That's great. "And I guess also my family."
Marcia Belsky! [ Cheers and applause ]
Hey, that was incredible! Come on over, Marcia.
Yeah, "I'm so thankful for my phone.
Oh, yeah, and also my family."
Yeah. Alright, let's meet contestant number 2.
What is your name? And where are you from?
-My name is Brooks Allison. I'm from Brooklyn, as well.
-Hey, Brooklyn in the house tonight!
-Mm-hmm. -Brooks Allison.
Brooks, what is the song title we gave you this evening?
-"Stuck in an Elevator with Ed Sheeran."
[ Laughter ]
-It's very possible. -Mm-hmm.
-It probably did happen, you know?
Elevators are kind of an old technology, but, I mean,
I'm sure that even Ed Sheeran uses an elevator, yeah.
-Sure.
-And he probably got stuck maybe once or twice with someone.
And I probably would enjoy being stuck in an elevator.
But what instrument will you be playing?
-I'll be playing guitar. -You'll be playing guitar?
Okay. Why don't you get over there.
-Thank you. -Get in the zone.
Come over here, Marcia.
♪♪ [ Cheers and applause ]
That was great, by the way. -Thank you.
-Ladies and gentlemen, get ready for the world premiere of
"Stuck in an Elevator with Ed Sheeran" by Brooks Allison!
[ Cheers and applause ]
-♪ I got in an elevator and was headed for the sixth floor ♪
♪ There was a big crash, and the elevator works no more ♪
[ Imitates crash ]
♪ I started to panic, turned around,
there was a red-headed man ♪
♪ Little did I know that I was stuck in an elevator with ♪
♪ Ed Sheeran ♪
♪ He told me I looked perfect tonight ♪
♪ I said, "Now's not the time" ♪
♪ He said, "No, that's just a line
from one of my songs called 'Perfect'" ♪
♪ I said, "Yeah, I know the song ♪
♪ I hear it all the time ♪
♪ Especially while driving ♪
♪ But right now, all I care about is surviving this
elevator thing ♪
♪ He said, "Yeah, that was dumb" ♪
♪ I said, "Don't worry about it" ♪
♪ And the doors opened up ♪
[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪
-[ Laughing ] Oh, my gosh.
Give it up for Brooks Allison right there.
[ Cheers and applause ] That was awesome.
Brooks, come on over. ♪♪
Thank you, Brooks. Wow!
It seemed like it really happened, almost.
Alright, now it's time to see who won,
so we're going to let our great audience decide the winner.
Was it Marcia Belsky? [ Drumroll ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
Or was it Brooks Allison?
[ Cheers and applause ]
It looks like the winner is Brooks Allison!
[ Dinging ] ♪♪
Brooks, you're going to be going home with $1,000
and a "Tonight Show" notebook for writing more songs.
-Thank you, thank you, thank you.
-Congratulations. That was a great job.
-Thank you, thank you.
-But no one goes home empty-handed.
Our other contestant tonight will also receive
a notebook and $1,000.
-Ooh!
-Thank you for being here.
Give it up for your two new instant songwriters.
[ Cheers and applause ]