“I’ve always wanted to make music that I could believe in, to convey a search for truth and share the hidden desires I’ve always felt.  My songs carry with them the struggles and hopes that I have faced in my own life.” –Gordon Roqué

If you ask Gordon Roqué what his musical background is, he’ll be inclined to tell you that he learned music by sitting on a beach as a teenager for countless hours and thinking about life while staring out into the sea. As unusual as this might sound, it pretty much exemplifies who he is as a musician and a human being.  There has always been a sense of exploration and discovery in his life and work.

Having grown up on a tropical island in the South Pacific called American Samoa, Roqué spent many years hearing the calming rhythms of crashing waves by his seaside home.  He always took the time to commune with the endless blue ocean.  It was his blank canvas–an infinite space for his imagination to grow.  He often thought about the world beyond and underneath the blue, about the truths concealed just below the surface of things or the unknowns just beyond the horizon.

It was this desire for discovery that prompted him to teach himself to play the piano after only six-months of formal training when he was just seven years old.  His musical education has been an endless succession of unearthing skills and abilities he did not know he had.

Life outside of music also presented other discoveries.  Roqué would come face to face with hardships within his own family and with the joys and challenges that come with loving someone deeply. Roqué says that there have been battles hard-fought and wounds still healing.

This is all hugely apparent in the songs from Roque’s debut album “Seahorses”.  From the uptempo bluesy-ness of “Villain” to the vintage music box feel of “Mr. Stranger” to the understated and string-laden “Tears In Savannah”, an unfailing desire to explore multiple musical textures is quite evident.  From an emotional and lyrical standpoint, there is the percussive anger in the fiery song “Fear”, the sense of isolation in “The Boy In the Room”, and the slightest glimmer of hope in the piano/cello ballad “Pale Sunshine”.   Roque’s own tender, private losses are honestly shared.

With the ocean as his teacher and his life as his guide, Gordon Roqué forges an unconventional musical path.  In his music, there are unfathomable depths just underneath a clear, smooth surface, a vision encompassing far more than the eyes can see.

© 2009 Gordon Roqué  All Rights Reserved.

I just posted another song from my album on myspace.  It’s a quiet
little ballad with piano, acoustic guitar, and chamberlain.  This is
the song that opens up my album “Seahorses”.

I vividly remember when I wrote this song.  It was a slow build over
a few months during my last year living in Charlotte, NC.  I was living
in the university area north of uptown at the time and was heading home
after work.  It was one of those long summer days when the Sun seemed
to refuse to set.  I looked up as I was driving through my neighborhood
from work and was awestruck by the sky.  Hues of golden yellow, orange,
billowy white, and the lightest of blues cascaded up above the earth. 
Of course, it was just another late afternoon in the south, but it felt
like there was something magical in the sky–something so far removed
from these comparitively mundane lives we live.

I was five blocks from my house when the idea for a song popped into
my head.  I started to hum a melody to the words “I wonder why .  . 
.”.  As soon as I parked the car, I rummaged around my truck for a pen
and paper.  Not finding any paper, I tore off a piece of a cardboard
box and just started writing.    I remember writing the words “I wonder
why he’s blue as the sky’, and the rest was history.  I sat there in my
truck and parked in my driveway for half an hour just writing a bunch
of lyrics.  Through the next few weeks, that melody I hummed came to me
at the piano.  I coaxed it out of hiding, and it exists for all to hear
on my album.

During that whole year, I was at a crossroad in my life.  Feeling
compelled to leave Charlotte towards an adventure unknown.  Feeling all
the fears and uncertainty that come with tumultuous change.  As I wrote
this song, I was thinking about the idea of freedom within the realm of
imprisonment–a dichotomy and a coexistance.

I’ve often said during many of my shows that this song in particular
is blatantly about me.   Well, it is, actually–in more ways than I care
to count or dare to mention.

Here are the lyrics:

The Boy In the Room

Lyrics and Music by Gordon Roque
© 2008 Gordon Roque BMI (All Rights Reserved)

He’s the boy in the room
Who stands on his own
Could it be that he’s not
So alone
He stands as he stares
out of his window
As the sun shines down

Chorus:
And I wonder why
He’s blue as the sky
He roams in a world
Where lullabies swirl
As a caged bird sings
As a caged bird sings

He goes far away
To places unknown
And he runs from his own shadow
He walks through a path
To a beat he follows
As the songs fill his soul

Something carries him away
From where doors close below
Something hurries him to shelter
Away from the cold
Something quietly sings a melody
As he lives and breathes

_________________________________

I was honestly tickled pink when I finished this song.  It was a sense of accomplishment that embraced me so lovingly.

I am very proud of this song.  It is a graceful, elegant, and understated testament to this life that I have lived.

I am now so proud to share it all with you.

Just click here to hear it for yourself.

More to come soon.

-gordo