The Nobody
July 27, 2021

'The Helicopter Of The Holy Ghost' - the album its author doesn't know what's it about

Billy Reeves was best known as a singer-songwriter who had worked with Sophie Ellis-Bextor in a band called theaudience. After he quit, he made an album worth of music when in a traffic accident he suffered severe brain injury and subsequently amnesia - "there’s a whole three-year chunk of my cultural memory missing – I don’t remember any of the music or TV shows from 1999 to 2001". He also forgot all about his recent music - "I was hearing songs that I had written but had no recollection of. I didn’t know what the lyrics were about, what I was thinking, who they were written for", as Reever wrote in a beautiful piece for the Guardian. He decided however to put it out, calling the record 'The Helicopter Of The Holy Ghost' - "I’m not religious, but it’s like the songs were written by a ghost because I don’t remember anything about writing them".