Jordi Gonzalez
Lyric Essay About Nothing
Jay: Tell me, Blue, how’s the music made?
Blue: To be honest with you, music just springs out from the nothing, the void; blooms like a flower. There’s some kind of effort, of varying degree, which allows for the music to truly be birthed and released into the world.
Jay: What’s your role in that? What’s my role?
Blue: I feel honored to be an instrument, a vessel, that allows for insights and energies to flow from the nothing to this reality. My body, my strings, and my neck all unify to create my own voice in the music. Really, it’s a combination of so many factors, seen and unseen, in both you (the musician) and I that culminate in the creation of the music. You are a channel, music is the medium, and I am your trusty tool. Every factor in the unfolding is just as crucial to the overall development that it is one. This goes for music and this goes for life.
Jay: Blue, you’re a friend to me. You’re a therapist to me. You’re an extension of me. Thank you for everything.
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Since I was a kid, when there was nothing around, I always had my imagination. Worlds would just appear. Sounds would come from over here and go over there. Characters would be born with personalities and all. In my mind, each scene had so much detail, so much life, and it was from nothing. This world we live in is similar in that– here it all is. I want to fill the world with as much love and beauty as I can while I’m still here. In this moment I write, in the next I sing, and in yet another I make those around me laugh until they can’t breathe and their stomachs hurt (in a good kind of way). The least I can do is give. I somehow arrived to this lifetime. I’ve been given so much love and beauty in my life already, and there’s so much more to come. I can only return the favor. I let the messages flow through me as an instrument of Nature. I let the words and sounds bloom on their own. Here I am and thank God. After everything, after everything, after everything. Thank God.
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Thank you space! The hollow body of the guitar lets me create. Thank you Nothing for the space you take! This room of mine gives me room to sleep and to create. As Shakespeare writes through Romeo’s mouth, “Why then’ O Brawling love! O loving hate! O any thing’ of nothing first create!” thank you to the nothing that first creates! Thank you space for there is ‘nothing’ there and it hasn’t a care in the world. We who fill and fill, until there is no space left there, can hardly breathe the fresh new air from the nothing that was there!
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The birds seem more intentional with their sounds, whereas the distant cars and the AC do not. Is nature more intentional with its movements and sounds? We humans can be intentional too when we intentionally create music, or sing together. Otherwise, not so much. Maybe we should be living much more intentionally, much more musically, in harmonization, as nature does.
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These sounds, like instruments, move and shape our world. From internal revolution to external revolution. Sounds play their cosmic role. The religious say first there was the Word and the scientists say first there was the Bang; both are sounds.
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Blue is a sky blue, classical, Spanish acoustic guitar made by Cordoba.
Blue likes the Spanish sun by the Mediterranean Sea with the sound of waves.
Blue likes to be held. Blue is there night ‘till dawn. Blue sounds warm, smooth, and clean. Blue is resilient and travels well. Who knew that Blue was another part of you? Who knew that Blue would help you speak your truth? Who knew that Blue knew more about you than you? With every sound that reverberates, as if existing before its play, the strings know what the soul needs to hear and what the music needs to say. Blue laughs along. Blue cries. Blue gets angry too. Who knew that Blue was also you? Who knew–
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There’s so much life in Nature that one is compelled to jump into the deep green as one would in the ocean of deep blue. Spring brings life and freshness. With the freshness of air, breathing comes easier and all is more light-hearted and bountiful. In the past, humanity would worship Nature and its related spirits and gods with due reason. It gives us our produce, fruits, wine, and water.
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The contrasts of the popping yellow and orange flowers show the strength and power of Nature and Life in general. Instead of being down-trodden, of dying, of not existing, or coming-to-be, the flowers prevailed; and we too can prevail. We prevail every day that we rise again. In a sea of green, the yellow and orange scream out “We are here!” and “Rejoice!” and so are we and so we do. Thank you Nature and thank you Spring!
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From nothing they grew. Now instruments of a whole, consuming, and (at times) inviting Nature. They play their role for the bees and the bees for the trees. An idea appears, seemingly from nothing, and back to nothing it goes. Just like I, who came to see, and back to nothing I will be.
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Thank you valleys, from the mountain’s trough you lead waters to where they belong– to the rest of the world! Thank you darkness, the absence of light, that gives me peace, to ease my mind, and allow for the rest of the body and soul at night. Thank you silence, stillness, secret powers within music where/when all can be felt. Thank you blank sheet, which has the space that lets me spill my words over like water to a garden in Spring. Thank you loss for giving me insight and greater awareness for what there still is and for what there is still to learn. Everything is an instrument of the nothing that first creates. From silence to sound, music was found, expressing all of nothing’s take.
