This is what honest songwriting sounds like

I used to chase the perfect plan,
Blueprints drawn by a younger man.
swore that time was made of gold,
Turns out tarnished when it got old.
Still, here I sit, with cup half-spilled,
Counting the blessings I never filled.

Maybe grace is just the art
Of losing things with a softer heart.

So here’s to what’s broken but still plays in tune,
To midnights that look a lot like noon.
To the laughter that leaks through the cracks we forget,
To forgiving the world though it’s not done yet.
Yeah, were moving not straight, not right 
Just some direction into the light.

The mirror’s kind, but the eyes know lies,
A grin’s just armor in disguise.
made peace with stubborn ghosts,
They haunt politely now they’re decent hosts.
Love and loss, they share one bed,
Taught me what can’t be fixed gets said.

Maybe joy’s that quiet sound,
Of laying old burdens down.

So here’s to bruises that taught me to bend,
To good mistakes that I’d make again.
To the kindness that hides in regret,
To forgiving myself though I’m not there yet.
Yeah, I’m drifting not wrong, not right 
Just some direction into the light.

No grand design, no master key,
Just love and luck and entropy.
If the stars can burn, then fade, then shine 
Maybe so can I… maybe so can I.

So here’s to the endings that don’t quite end,
To calling a scar an honest friend.
To the stories that time won’t vet,
To forgiving the world and myself, I bet.
Yeah, I’m heading not fast, not bright 
Just some direction… into the light.

Some direction into the light

John Bilik’s musical evolution reads like a love letter to imagination, vulnerability, and the surreal beauty of emotional complexity. Past loves and old sorrows echo through his catalog, not as anchors but as raw materials- broken glass reworked into stained-glass windows. Every loss, every love, every crack in the heart reshapes his songs into something simultaneously fragile and unshakably alive.

With a vocal delivery that feels like David Byrne fell asleep dreaming in a Danny Elfman waltz, Bilik constructs intimate yet fantastical worlds where memory, regret, and absurdity dance together under a flickering marquee. His early songs teased at theatricality, but his more recent work, such as “That’s What My Dog Always Says” and “I’m Out of Phase”, fully embraces it, blending sly lyricism, poetic intelligence, and idiosyncratic storytelling into a style that defies category.

Listeners have described his music as “cryptic diaries written in invisible ink” and “the kind of strange, beautiful honesty you didn’t know you needed.” One moment, he’s delivering lines worthy of Leonard Cohen (“She sang to stars with broken lungs”); the next, he’s gut-punching you with a talking dog’s whispered wisdom (“Yeah! That’s what my dog says”).

What’s remarkable about Bilik’s growth isn’t just his increasing comfort with abstraction, but the way he grounds it with sincerity. Beneath the theatrical winks and surreal refrains is a genuine longing for connection, for rhythm, for love that slips just out of reach. Stylistically, he’s carving a unique lane: think art-cabaret meets metaphysical pop, with room for spoken word, crooked lullabies, and shadowy love stories. Vocally, Bilik leans into the cracks and textures of his own voice, not polishing them away, but using them like charcoal lines on a sketch.

It’s imperfect in the best way- human, haunted, alive. If his current arc continues, Bilik may very well become one of those rare artists whose work gets discovered late, then devoured backwards, with new fans wondering how they missed the strange, beautiful rise of a man who once wrote, with deadpan magic: “Don’t chase shadows, they want praise, yeah! That’s what my dog says.”
 -Buzzslayers Aug, 2025

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