In Nowhere

I have kept those stories and emotions locked deep within my heart for years. On paper, it might seem like a simple thing. But the pain of making a decision that goes against your own heart, simply because it is "right," was an unrewarding agony. For a long time, it was the only thorn that made me writhe in bed every night.

Years later, I found the perfect opportunity to turn that experience into ink and pour it into a song. Sitting at my desk, I faced that "moral conflict." A man torn between being a "human being" capable of making mistakes and, at the same time, a "god of morality." At that moment, several questions were racing through my mind: "Must I always be a model of righteousness?" "Am I not human?" "Am I not even allowed to fail?"

Thus, these lyrics were born. Here is the translation:

A message from the path of one who walks the righteous road.
I am stranded in a place that is nowhere.
Guilt would hurt far less than knowing you are drifting away,
than the reality that our days together are already over.
Without exchanging words, loving each other only with our eyes,
just like back then.
I want to go back to that day.
At the moment I was about to commit a sin, you said:
"Why couldn't we have met sooner?"

The song begins with the figure of a man who, while doing the "right thing," has ended up stranded in an existential void.

A message from the path of one who walks the righteous road. I am stranded in a place that is nowhere.

In other words, while other people's lives continue after the "good deed" is done, the narrator, having sacrificed himself, is unable to move forward. I am trapped within my own emotions, my own thoughts. Even as the months and years pass, in my heart, I am still standing on that platform, saying goodbye to that woman over and over again.

"A place that is nowhere" is the name I chose for a specific location.

It is like another planet—a barren world where only one's own consciousness and nothingness exist. The man has wandered into it and is composing these words.

Guilt would hurt far less than knowing you are drifting away, than the reality that our days together are already over.

In a sense, this man is ruminating on the situation repeatedly. The scale of his sadness is so vast that, at this point, he feels guilt would have been much easier to endure than the suffering forced upon him in the pursuit of "good."

Without exchanging words, loving each other only with our eyes, just like back then.

The character travels back in time, recalling how the two of them fused through their gazes. It is a fantasy, a longing—a forbidden reality that can never exist.

I want to go back to that day. At the moment I was about to commit a sin, you said: "Why couldn't we have met sooner?"

The character is a prisoner of the past, unable to be set free. He is not just reliving the past in his head; he desperately wants to return to the platform that day to make the choice all over again. If he could go back, would our protagonist choose "good" or "evil"? That question remains unanswered.

The song intentionally poses an open question: Is doing the "right thing" always right? Must a human being take on the role of a guardian of morality higher than God, even at the cost of losing a part of their own humanity?

Here are a few short clips from the recording sessions.

Initially, I had to handle everything alone—from installing Cubase and configuring the DAW to processing various effects for all the instruments. Since I was the only one who understood recording technology, I had to simultaneously take on the roles of lyricist, vocalist, composer, and editor. Long, grueling sessions followed, with seven or eight hours spent on rehearsals and recording.

To avoid renting a rehearsal studio (there wasn't even a studio in my town, and getting to the nearest one required taking a train), we did all the work at the home of the band's guitarist, Cristian. He owned some necessary equipment, but most importantly, he had an amp and a Focusrite interface.

In the afternoon, our manager, Matías, would arrive at my house by train around 2:00 or 3:00 PM. From there, we would head toward Cristian's house at the edge of town, walking eight or nine blocks under the scorching sun.

It should be added that street safety is a major concern in Argentina. It goes without saying that I felt a certain level of fear while making that journey.

Upon arriving at the house, Cristian's dog, Ozzy, would be waiting for me behind the iron gate. He was a small black dog who would jump for joy when he saw me. Seeing him brightened my day; to be honest, it was often one of the best moments of the entire trip.

After recording the base of the song, I realized it needed an intro. The track felt too flat. I asked the manager if we could add something to the beginning. I downloaded several keyboard effects and experimented until I achieved a sound close to a Korg keyboard.

This is the intro that the manager recorded:

On my end, I had to cut several parts of the lyrics and reshape other sections to give the verses their proper form.

The advantage is that once you capture the "spirit" of what you want to say and the "melody" of how to convey it, you only need to follow that direction until the rest of the song reveals itself. It is like having a fragment of a painting, a passage of a score, or a wall that is already half-built. While there is still a creative element involved, visualizing the rest of the work becomes much easier.

Once I reached a certain point and understood the song's structure, I felt that a guitar solo was essential to highlight its most symbolic part:

Without exchanging words, loving each other only with our eyes, just like back then.

So, I requested a solo, and after several sessions, it was finally complete.

To reach the final product, every single fragment had to be shaped and refined. It was a process that even required cleaning and polishing.

Two months later, our first song was complete. By establishing a structure, understanding our collective strengths, and defining our respective roles, the band became solid. It had become a "machine" ready to produce art.

"...This song is a reconstruction of last year's theme, 'Why couldn't I have met you sooner?' I kept only the core idea and rebuilt it from scratch.
Imagine a man who occasionally looks back on that woman. She is happy, but he, without her, is not. Because he made a moral decision and wisely did the 'right thing,' their paths diverged long ago.
He continues to think of her daily, like a torture of his own soul. He oscillates between the regret of having done a good deed and the pride of having been righteous. Wouldn't the guilt of having committed a sin have been more bearable than this periodic suffering caused by the decision to walk away from love?
Essentially, this song asks that... Is doing the right thing always right? At any cost? Even at the sacrifice of one's own happiness?"

Conclusion: A Perspective from the Present

At that time, Ssendas was an essential circuit for me to escape from the structural, purely mathematical binary world of programming. That first experience, built on the connection and mutual understanding with my bandmates, made it possible to create more songs with them later on. I will likely analyze those in the future.

Regarding the question raised in the lyrics—"Is doing the right thing always right?"—for years, I didn't even know if it was a good thing or even a natural one. I constantly questioned myself, swinging from one end of the ring to the other, wondering if I should have prioritized my own happiness. Today, my vision is different. I no longer suffer from it as I did then. However, I cannot say I have a definitive answer. No truth or knowledge is absolute, and my perspective may change again tomorrow.

Back then, something within me living that moment—my own essence, or my values—pushed me toward doing the "right thing." It was an invisible force within me; it was my "imprint."

Today, that force is my own will. It is the will of someone who has finally digested the fact that the purest essence is not determined by results. When doing something, whether it succeeds or not is unimportant. What matters is the starting point of the act—the will behind it. Anything done solely for the sake of the result is "business," and business often distorts art. It makes art impure. It twists the true will, drifting away from the original philosophy and assimilating into something "convenient"—something that serves oneself or society.

We are social beings and cannot exclude ourselves from society, so there are times when we must make concessions. In a sense, a conscious merchant can be seen as a social benefactor, but an artist is something else. A pure artist is one who creates, decides, and moves their will even if it brings them no benefit. They do not use art for personal gain or to give something to others. Rather, art uses them as a "human brush"... as a martyr of art, so to speak.

Is doing the right thing always right? Only you know the answer to that.