2025 Competition Entry:
Wizard at the Window by Roberta Smith
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Genre
Rock
Artist
Co-writer(s)
no
Performer(s)
Me (Roberta Smith) on guitar, violin and voice, Aeron Z Jones on bass and rhythm and other instruments
Description
Sometimes your own song becomes an ear worm that just keeps spooling through your head night and day. It drives you crazy! So I thought I’d make the ear worm be a character tapping “at the window of my mind”. The idea came a long time ago but finally I completed it.
Bio
Roberta Smith recorded her first songs as a 16-year-old and she has retained the fresh-voiced youth of those early recordings. A boho singer-songwriter, she writes in an unusual style, the songs often unconventional in format and lyrically unexpected. She plays beautiful fingerstyle guitar and in some ways, her music defies comparison, although the influence of the 70s singer-songwriter movement is unmistakable.
She started to write songs when she was 15 and rose to almost immediate success at 16, winning a major talent competition and performing in the winners’ concert at Leeds Town Hall in front of 4,000 people. She was quickly taken up by Esther Ofarim’s (and later Scott Walker’s) management. At University, she opened for Ralph McTell at Charles Morris Hall, played Leeds University Union and on the university TV network and at many venues in and around Leeds.
After University, marriage and four children, many appearances at many venues and even a spell playing Anne Boleyn in a medieval theatre restaurant, she is still here and still playing, writing and working towards bringing her music to a wider audience. Despite many disappointments and unrealised promises her passion for songwriting has never waned and she is very excited to be recording again and to be back on the London scene.
Roberta has guested on Radio Leeds, provided background music for the BBC World Service, played at Leeds Town Hall, London’s Kashmir Club, the Bedford, the Camden Club, Bunjie’s, the Old Town Hall Hemel Hempstead and at the Court Theatre, Tring. She has also written original music for theatre plays, The Glass Menagerie, Cider with Rosie and The Graduate.
She released her first single: « Clock Patience » in 2021 and has just released her second single: Shade and Shelter in January 2025. An album is in the final editing stages and another single and an EP will be released soon.
She started to write songs when she was 15 and rose to almost immediate success at 16, winning a major talent competition and performing in the winners’ concert at Leeds Town Hall in front of 4,000 people. She was quickly taken up by Esther Ofarim’s (and later Scott Walker’s) management. At University, she opened for Ralph McTell at Charles Morris Hall, played Leeds University Union and on the university TV network and at many venues in and around Leeds.
After University, marriage and four children, many appearances at many venues and even a spell playing Anne Boleyn in a medieval theatre restaurant, she is still here and still playing, writing and working towards bringing her music to a wider audience. Despite many disappointments and unrealised promises her passion for songwriting has never waned and she is very excited to be recording again and to be back on the London scene.
Roberta has guested on Radio Leeds, provided background music for the BBC World Service, played at Leeds Town Hall, London’s Kashmir Club, the Bedford, the Camden Club, Bunjie’s, the Old Town Hall Hemel Hempstead and at the Court Theatre, Tring. She has also written original music for theatre plays, The Glass Menagerie, Cider with Rosie and The Graduate.
She released her first single: « Clock Patience » in 2021 and has just released her second single: Shade and Shelter in January 2025. An album is in the final editing stages and another single and an EP will be released soon.
Lyrics
WIZARD AT THE WINDOW
© March 2024 Roberta Smith
Wizard at the window,
Weaving words and he’s here too soon.
Talking in the twilight,
Turning tones and he twists my tune.
Thinking aloud in the vanishing daylight;
Warm breeze playing like a melody;
White waves drumming to the rhythm of Lucifer;
Driftwood dancing in a splintered sea.
Wizard at the window,
Looping lines and he lingers long,
Whispering in the willow;
burning beats and he steals my song:
Wizard at the window of my mind.
Thinking aloud in the vanishing daylight;
Warm breeze playing like a melody;
White waves drumming to the rhythm of Lucifer;
Driftwood dancing in a splintered sea.
Dark days coming,
Dark days past,
Dark days coming;
How long will they last?
Wizened in the moonlight; there he stays with his hammered tunes.
“Leave me now!” I beg him “Please erase your wrinkled runes”.
Wizard at the window of my mind.
Thinking aloud in the vanishing daylight;
Warm breeze playing like a melody(
White waves drumming to the rhythm of Lucifer;
Driftwood dancing in a splintered sea.
Sometimes I just need some rest,
Yet he plagues me with his songs.
Sometimes he’s the very best
But then sometimes my spirit longs
To sleep.
Dark days coming.
Dark days past.
Dark days coming;
How long will they last?
© March 2024 Roberta Smith
Wizard at the window,
Weaving words and he’s here too soon.
Talking in the twilight,
Turning tones and he twists my tune.
Thinking aloud in the vanishing daylight;
Warm breeze playing like a melody;
White waves drumming to the rhythm of Lucifer;
Driftwood dancing in a splintered sea.
Wizard at the window,
Looping lines and he lingers long,
Whispering in the willow;
burning beats and he steals my song:
Wizard at the window of my mind.
Thinking aloud in the vanishing daylight;
Warm breeze playing like a melody;
White waves drumming to the rhythm of Lucifer;
Driftwood dancing in a splintered sea.
Dark days coming,
Dark days past,
Dark days coming;
How long will they last?
Wizened in the moonlight; there he stays with his hammered tunes.
“Leave me now!” I beg him “Please erase your wrinkled runes”.
Wizard at the window of my mind.
Thinking aloud in the vanishing daylight;
Warm breeze playing like a melody(
White waves drumming to the rhythm of Lucifer;
Driftwood dancing in a splintered sea.
Sometimes I just need some rest,
Yet he plagues me with his songs.
Sometimes he’s the very best
But then sometimes my spirit longs
To sleep.
Dark days coming.
Dark days past.
Dark days coming;
How long will they last?
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