Billy Oliver (born William Stephen Oliver) is a very cool, talented artist from Vancouver, British Columbia. He grew up listening to The Beatles, Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, the Righteous Brothers, the Beach Boys, and David Bowie over the radio in the kitchen, and his influences can really be heard in his music.
Billy is originally from the band The Ormidales, but after the success of his past two solo tracks, namely ‘Rain On Me’ and ‘From The Hit Parade’, he has recently released his latest track ‘Dream In Blue’. Blue is Billy’s favourite colour and evokes serenity or pain. When I first listened to “Dream In Blue’ I was taken aback by the calming sounds of a synthesizer starting off the song, until the cool drum sounds come in and then although there is a bit of a beat, Billy still manages to keep the calm feeling going where it feels like I’m sailing in a river with a gentle breeze.
Billy’s voice reminds me of Roy Orbison and Elvis when he hits those low notes. Elvis’ Moody Blue comes to mind. It’s also a “happy-sad” song about a difficult woman. But P.D. Wohl has Bill’s back on backing vocals.
Lyrically, I think Billy’s talent shines through with his songwriting taking you on a journey, almost taking on a dream boat down a river, and making you think everything is going to be okay.
Having said that, the story of the song and lyrics do take a turn, where he speaks about his love of his life leaving on a Sunday morning, I find it fascinating that after feeling quite calm and at ease, Billy manages to contrast calm and feelings of depression and lowness together and a tell a sad story of a break up. I also think a great artist often does feel things strongly than the average person, but also manages to tell of pain and depression in such a beautiful way.
The song also comes with a great, interesting lyric music video, which again gives you the sense of calm and relaxation, but the lyrics on the screen eventually tell a different story. Also I love the colours used in the video, as the song is named ‘Dream in Blue’, there is a lot of blue you see throughout the video, but I also picked up on how certain lyrics portray different colours, for example the lyric saying “Dream in Colors” is in pink and another lyric that says “Dream in black and white”, the background was in black and white, I am not sure if that was on purpose but it does lend itself to the fact that some great thought went into the video and it tells the story in a most beautiful colourful way.
You can watch the video here:
Billy explains about the track: “Dreaming in blue can symbolize a range of emotions and concepts, both positive and negative. It can represent calmness, serenity, and peace, but also sadness, depression, or even a sense of calamity. The specific meaning often depends on the context of the dream and the shade of blue experienced.”
For all the Ormidales fans, the band has just released “The Very Best of The Ormidales” on Wohl Of Sound Records in Vancouver. They also have new material coming out this fall, which I’m looking forward to listening to. So fans can get out for that.
Well done to Billy Oliver and PD Wohl on another great track and collaboration, and I look forward to seeing what you come out with next.
You can find Billy Oliver’s music on Bandcamp at:
https://billyoliver.bandcamp.com/track/dream-in-blue
Follow him on Facebook at:
https://www.facebook.com/billy.o.149448
https://www.facebook.com/theormidales