El Valle

I wrote “El Valle” to get something off my chest, and I’ll say it that plainly instead of dressing it up. There was a stretch of time when nothing felt reachable, when I honestly didn’t know when I’d get out of the place I was in, emotionally, not geographically, and the song is what came out once I stopped trying to name that place and just described walking through it.

I didn’t set out to write about Gustavo Cerati. But somewhere between the vampires, the erased footprints, the “I don’t know if I’ll get out,” I recognized his last years looking back at me, the silence, the suspended years, a mind circling the same territory without quite landing anywhere. I’ve loved his music since an age early enough that it shaped how I listen to everything else, and I think grief for an artist you never met seeps into your own cathartic process whether you invite it or not. By the time I noticed what the song had also become, it was already both things at once, my valley and his.

I left every question in the lyrics unanswered on purpose, “tell me if this is real,” because pretending I had an answer would have been dishonest to both halves of what the song is doing. There are places you don’t leave cleanly. You just keep singing at their edge until singing becomes a kind of company.

And then, uninvited, without my ever asking for it in any prompt, his voice showed up in the render all the same. I’m not worthy. I’m not worthy.