2025 Competition Entry:

The Visitor by Tony Billings

Genre

Folk

Artist

Co-writer(s)

no

Performer(s)

Tony Billings – Keyboards, Guitars, Vocals, Drum Machine programming, other Sampled instruments.

Description

Inspired partly by the more modern folk/pop trends but also with a foot in the 90’s and nodding to the likes of Suzanne Vega and Edie Brickell

Bio

I’ve been making music since I was a teenager back in the 1970’s.

As a member of The Academic Hamiltons in the early 80’s I got to play at all the top clubs of the time (Marquee, Rock Garden, Bridge House, etc.), to record in some of the most celebrated studios of the day, and to open for some of the bigger names of the 80’s but we never quite managed that final step.

My love of music (and particularly writing) has never waned and now, in my 60’s I finally have the time and money to step back and actually make some decent recordings of the songs I’ve written over the last 50 years.

In the last two years I’ve released two albums of new recordings of my old songs, and an album of completely new material. I am currently working on another new album of brand new songs.

Lyrics

A stranger came calling, he whispered your name
I told him there’s nothing to see
He told me a secret that only we shared
I had to confess it was me

He played me your song, he knew every word
Then asked me to go for a ride
And now I am sitting here facing myself
Feeling I’ve no place to hide

How do I visit that place in my mind
Where the answers just wait to be read
Where is the handbook for how this is played
’cause I cant find the script in my head

And when he came calling I needed no name
I saw from the look in his eyes
The times I have waited here all by myself
wondering how I had ever survived

How do I find that path which takes us back
Where the answers just wait to be found?
Where is redemption and which is the road
That will lead us all homeward bound?

I am here standing alone again
Before it all
I still hear you speak my name
As we wait for their call

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