Introducing you to Billy Johnstone

Hi, I’d like to introduce you to my uncle, Billy Johnstone, who lives in the north of England. 

Something cool actually happened during Lockdown. I wrote a poem called A Little Life, and Billy was inspired by it and wrote a song called As the Light. And that song inspired me. Since then, I’ve been attempting to write lyrics and he has been working his magic to turn them into songs. So now I’m thinking that songs are poems with wings! They lift off the page and go places.

To listen to these Lockdown songs and some of Billy’s others, check out his page on my blog (second row of tabs). You can also find him on SoundCloud.

 

An interview with Billy with follow soon. 

Cheers!


As the Light

Billy Johnstone · As The Light

She Blows in with the Tide
Lyrics by Vickie Johnstone 

Billy Johnstone · She Blows In With The Tide

The Dark Wood
Lyrics by Vickie Johnstone 

Billy Johnstone · The Dark Wood

Under a Severed Moon
Lyrics by Vickie Johnstone 

Billy Johnstone · Under A Severed Moon

The singer

Sing


She treads fearless in the musings
Of a myriad true silent screams
Bereft of the knowledge
Naked under the open skies
Wrestling still in the openess


A cry in the dark
A murmur above


She sings the songs so wild
Slicing open distant memories
Cleaving them in two


Whispers in the night
Whispers from a shell


She wanders in corridors
Ever turning, ever yielding
Finds nothing she searches for


So the distancing comes
Black in woven hate
Covers everything in a cloak
Of bitterness, lost, afraid


She sings pure songs so fearful
They cut her like a knife
Her voice cries down the ages
Still silent like the grave


A cry gives vent to despair
A call gives rise to eternity


And so she sings all the songs
The waiting wish to hear
Hounding her, draining her
The lines flood out beyond
Blues turn into the darkest black


Pools of trickling blood
Wailing in the dark


She remembers nothing spent
In the phrases that she sings
Alone to the waiting faces
That raise her above all else


A cry in the night
A murmur in the dark


She wanders listless home alone
Distant thoughts so silent swept
She hums a sober distant tune
A song lost in the tide of time