Part 1

Name: Rosa Bordallo
Nationality: Guam
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Current release: Rosa Bordallo's new album Isidro is out now.

If you enjoyed this Rosa Bordallo interview and would like to know more about her music, visit her on Instagram.  
 


Do you think that some of your earliest musical experiences planted a seed for your interest in writing lyrics or poetry? How and when did you start writing?

My earliest experiences of music were at church. I grew up on the island of Guam, in a community of devout Chamorros. I attended Catholic school from kindergarten through high school. I didn’t like going to Mass because it was repetitive and stifling. The last thing a kid wants to do is sit still. The music broke up the monotony, and there’s a part of the Mass that is like a musical interlude where the congregation sits in contemplation.

We sang most of the hymns in English, and some of the songs we sang in Chamorro. A lot of the songs were mournful. Even the ones that were celebrations painted a haunting picture - of triumph over death, of being greeted by angels. So my first experience of songbooks and lyrics started in this very somber, kind of morbid atmosphere, that also had an element of grace and beauty sitting in a cathedral with vaulted ceilings and stained glass windows.

I got my first diary as a birthday present when I turned 9 years old, so that’s when I started to write my thoughts out on paper. And my older sister, who was attending college at the time, taught me how to do ‘stream of consciousness’ writing. We took a bunch of loose leaf paper and just wrote and wrote until there was nothing left in our heads. Someone told me recently they could never do that - like there’s a fear of opening that dam.

I had shown an interest in writing for a number of reasons. My older siblings kept journals. And writers were often depicted in popular culture. I had seen the movie ‘My Girl’ and the main character writes poetry, and I wanted to be like her.

As for writing lyrics, I wrote my first song when I picked up guitar as a teenager. As soon as I felt comfortable strumming chords, I started writing lyrics. It just felt natural and inevitable - music had a way of freeing up feelings that needed to be expressed.

Entering new worlds and escapism through music and literature have always exerted a very strong pull on me. What do you think you are drawn to most when it comes to writing?

There were lots of books in our house growing up. My dad had three kids from an earlier marriage, and I was the youngest of four from my mother, so I inherited the books of six siblings - comic books, encyclopedias, textbooks, dime novels, history books because my dad was an avid reader. So the written word was very compelling to me.

Books had an aura of mystery and magic. I intuitively knew that writing was a powerful act.

What were some of the artists and albums which inspired you early on purely on the strength of their lyrics? What moves you in the lyrics of other artists?

My older siblings were entering college while I was entering puberty, so our house had this little treasure trove of music from the indie labels. That was a bright spot for me as I was a psychological mess - hormonally, emotionally, and just generally. So most of my early inspiration were women artists with a raw sensibility - angry women, passionate women.

I’m the type of listener who is moved by mood and composition more than by lyrics. But when lyrics tap a nerve, when they leave you spellbound - that’s what I remember as a young listener. PJ Harvey’s lyrics were like nothing else. She was grim, candid, and stark.

The albums Dry, Rid of Me, and 4 Track Demos kind of taught me everything I know.



So did Björk’s music - Debut, Homogenic, Post, Vespertine - she was a pure romantic, and her heightened awareness of what love does to us internally, the beauty that springs forth like an eternal fountain of youth - it gave me a sense of hope that I could find a sense of belonging one day.

I have ‘Man-Sized’ tattooed on my arm because I never want to forget that feeling of being both liberated and validated. Feelings are messy and complex and we don’t have to fully understand them in order to express them as artists.

Kristin Hersh’s Strings was another great example. Her lyrics combined with Lenny Kaye’s string arrangements remain one of the most interesting pieces of the singer-songwriter genre. It comforts me in a way that nothing else can.



Punk music tapped my anger, and a lot of it didn’t have decipherable lyrics. But one line of seething rage could cut through like a knife and undo an oppressive world view.

Bikini Kill, Slant 6, Red Aunts, L7, 7 Year Bitch, Heavens to Betsy -  I played Heavens to Betsy’s “Axemen” and “My Red Self” a lot.



Helium, The Dirt of Luck, was also from the punk and indie rock world but the vocal delivery was very deadpan, so the lyrical content gave it frisson.



These artists taught me that inhabiting my feelings fully - having a range of emotions, not suppressing or downplaying them - is what real agency is about. Expressing one’s truth is powerful, even when that truth is in conflict with the prevailing narrative.

That’s what a true narrative is - it takes our humanity into account. There are a lot of artists today who can express themselves more fully thanks to these women artists from the 90s.

It is sometimes said that “music begins where words end.” What do you make of that?

Music is used as therapy for people with dementia, so yes there is definitely truth to that. I think music was with us - in terms of evolution - from the very beginning. Before we shared words with each other, we shared rhythm, we shared melodies. Mothers cooed to babies. Lovers moaned in ecstasy.

I don’t know if that can be backed by scientific research, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that were true.

The first verse of my song “I Feel Numb” is actually about this. Music succeeds where words fail.



I have always considered many forms of music to be a form of poetry as well. Where do you personally see similarities? What can music express which may be out of reach for poetry?

Music and poetry have unique properties so they’re quite different modes of expression, at least for me personally.

It’s hard to describe what music does to us. I think poetry has a more rational explanation. Poetry to me is more like an incantation - it’s a spell that can conjure what you want or expel what you don’t want. Music is more like being possessed.

You can lose your sense fully in music. With poetry, you still need to keep your wits about you, at least if you want to be intelligible and not veer fully into insanity and chaos. Both are ecstatic experiences - or rather, they have the potential to be ecstatic experiences.

What are areas/themes/topics that you keep returning to in your lyrics?

I’m pretty simple - everything goes back to my unhappy childhood. Sorry to spoil it. Seriously though, I tend to unconsciously seek reconnection so my lyrics are about heartbreak and grief a lot.

I think in another life I would have enjoyed just filling my days with devotional hymns to Krishna or some other deity that represents universal love and compassion. If Mirabai could do it, why not me?

On the basis of a piece off your most recent release, tell me about how the lyrics grew into their final form and what points of consideration were.

The third single from my album is called “Leavetaking” and it actually starts with a lyric that is also in the bridge of “Home” the first song on the album.

That lyric is “it isn’t news / all the things they do / but when / will it ever end?”



Before I knew that piece of music would be the bridge in “Home,” I kept veering off into these other improvisations that were mournful and plaintive. That wouldn’t work for “Home” but it was like a thread that I kept pulling.

So I decided to make a separate song for it. And in that song - which is now “Leavetaking” - it starts with the same lyric but then departs into an entirely different perspective. It’s a message that is very spiritual and I’m comforted by the fact that it’s arrival is a bit of a cosmic mystery to me.

I know you only asked for one example, but I’ll also share that “Buried Treasure” was a very special experience for me as I was writing the lyrics. I was grieving two people I lost - one person who had passed away young and unexpectedly, and another person I had to separate from for my sanity’s sake. So these are tragedies and memories that I was trying to treat with the utmost care.



I wanted to capture why it was so tragic to lose them. They were people who deserved better from society. When young people are neglected, when the social safety net fails them as adults, we all lose out. I think a lot of people who suffer from that fundamental sense of rejection from society rarely find out just how much they are loved and cherished. How much they are missed.

At the same time this song was being written, I was overwhelmed by the news of mass graves being discovered at a number of Indian boarding schools. Children. The genocide that occurred is an obscured part of history that every American needs to know if we are going to talk about what it means to be American. It just beggars belief. What kind of society would do this? Would enable this?

So the lyrics for “Buried Treasure” are really about our crimes against humanity. If we don’t fundamentally change how we view ourselves and each other - as deserving of basic care, as deserving to belong - we will never change as a society. We will continue to harm and maim and kill each other and those we consider inferior.