2025 Competition Entry:

You Don’t Have to Believe by Tessa Souter

Genre

Pop

Artist

Co-writer(s)

no

Performer(s)

Tessa Souter (vocals and song writer), Essiet Essiet (bass), Freddie Bryant (guitar)

Description

It came to me in the street almost in its entirety. I was getting over a relationship with someone who’d just been a big old locked door that I was knocking on with no answer. I realized, wait a minute … I’m actually fine.

Bio

“There’s something raw and real about hearing Tessa Souter sing,” wrote John Payne in the LA Weekly. “Basically a self-taught musician, she is not afraid to take big risks in her performances with surprising takes on often just as surprisingly un-standard repertoire, from jazz arrangements of ‘Eleanor Rigby, Cream’s ‘White Room’ and Nick Drake’s ‘River Man’ to covers of Brazilian compositions by Milton Nascimento and Dori Caymmi, originals such as her own mesmerizing ‘Usha’s Wedding,’ superb arrangements of classical stuff by Chopin, Beethoven, Debussy and others, and modern jazz tunes by Kenny Barron and Wayne Shorter, who gave her not only permission to record her lyric to ‘Ana Maria’ but shared writing. [NB: Kurt Elling recorded it, with additional lyrics by Elling, on his Grammy-nominated album, Wildflowers Volume 1.] It’s the sound of an artist doing things her own way.”

Lyrics

YOU DON’T HAVE TO BELIEVE

You say you don’t believe in spring
But spring is love and love is in everything
Within the bare branches of December trees
Live the red leaves of fall. You don’t have to believe at all

A skylark rises up from the ground
It is singing but you don’t hear the sound
But that does not mean the lark’s not there
Just ’cause you’re not aware. It doesn’t need you to care

Warmth comes from the sun, wind blows on everyone
And the rivers wind even though you’re not mine
In the dark you don’t see me at all
When it is raining you don’t hear me call
But above the clouds of gray and the dark the sky is always blue
That doesn’t depend on you

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