Billy Kinsley: The Melody Never Leaves You

Some people write songs.

Billy Kinsley seems to collect them.

Spend half an hour in his company and you’ll quickly discover that conversations don’t stay conversations for very long. A question about songwriting suddenly becomes an impromptu performance. A memory of Liverpool in the 1960s drifts into an Everly Brothers harmony. Mention one of his biggest hits and, before you know it, he’s quietly singing down the telephone as though no time has passed at all.

At eighty, Billy still talks about music with the enthusiasm of the young lad who first wandered into the Cavern and watched four local musicians change his life.

“I only wanted to be American,” he laughed. “Everything I watched on television had to be American, especially the music. Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers were my heroes.”

Then came The Beatles.

Watching them perform songs they had written themselves planted a seed that would shape the rest of his life.

“They were doing everything I wanted to do. They were writing songs, singing harmonies… nobody I knew even knew what a harmony was.”

That fascination with melody never left him.

Unlike many songwriters, Billy always began with an acoustic guitar.

“The lyrics usually came first,” he told me. “If there was one good line, I’d keep it and build from there.”

Some songs arrived quickly.

Others took longer.

But melody always came naturally.

“I was brought up on Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers. Their songs were simple, but the melodies… that’s what stayed with me.”

It’s easy to forget just how many songs Billy has written over the years. Classics such as You Are My Love, Every Man Must Have a Dream, Chinatown, So What and If You’re Out There became part of the soundtrack of a generation, while You Are My Love remains one of Sir Paul McCartney’s favourite songs, praise that still leaves Billy quietly delighted.

Every songwriter has one song that feels different.

For Billy, it was Every Man Must Have a Dream.

The inspiration came thousands of miles from Liverpool while visiting his sister in Washington.

Sitting beneath the statue of Abraham Lincoln, he found himself reflecting on dreams, ambition and possibility.

The title came first.

The rest followed.

Like so many of his songs, it simply flowed.

Listening to Billy describe the writing process, it becomes obvious that he never approached songwriting academically. There were no complicated formulas or carefully planned structures.

Songs arrived as feelings.

“The melody just comes,” he shrugged.

For Billy, that has always been enough.

His career has taken him around the world, but one memory still makes him smile.

Playing Brazil’s famous Maracanã Stadium, the crowd began chanting for You Are My Love. Halfway through the performance, the noise became deafening.

It wasn’t the song.

Football legend Pelé had just walked into the stadium.

“It was magical,” Billy smiled. “Absolutely magical.”

Despite the success, Billy speaks without ego.

He laughs about early recording sessions where bands simply kept recording until everyone agreed they’d finally got the right take.

“There wasn’t any cutting and pasting then,” he said. “You just kept playing until you got it right.”

It’s a reminder of a very different music industry, where talent mattered more than technology.

Sadly, Billy no longer performs as he once did.

A routine elbow operation left a surgical instrument inside his arm, permanently affecting his ability to play guitar.

He talks about it without bitterness, although it’s impossible not to hear the sadness beneath the humour.

“I can still sing,” he told me. “Thank God.”

And when he does, that unmistakable voice still carries the warmth, melody and honesty that have always defined his music.

As our conversation came to an end, it struck me that Billy Kinsley isn’t simply a songwriter.

He’s a storyteller.

Some stories are told through words.

Billy has always preferred melodies.

Long after the conversation had finished, I found myself humming Every Man Must Have a Dream.

Some songs really do stay with you.

Just like the people who write them.