I dedicate this song to Los Jalas and the Caracas Fogata Club.

I released this song earlier this year. It’s been a while, but I feel like I never gave it proper advertising. By proper advertising, I mean I didn’t write a blog post for it. Back then, the plan was to release a new single every week. I suffered from burnout and an ill-cured depression, also had a relationship breakup, and here we are now, finally picking the ball up again.

Burnout is something I’ve experienced frequently on my singer-songwriter journey. I’m very much the loner type, preferring to dish out work alone than having to rely on others. It doesn’t help that my brand is so exotic and outlandish. I’m trying, or at least I think I am, to do something very unusual that doesn’t fit with the trend in music management and marketing.

I guess I should mention I’m also contemptuous of authority. I don’t know if this is just a phase or if it’ll be a personality trait throughout my lifetime. In this world, with all the chaos and suffering it has, I have a hard time following authority when it seems none of the leaders really know what is going on.

That being said, I believe authority, competence and power are crucial for humanity to surpass the hurdles placed before it. Maybe I’m being far too arrogant in my perspective, and merely have not learned enough of the world.

Ring of Fire is a song that describes the experiences I went through after what might’ve been severe depression. The ring of fire, in a figurative sense, comprises all the negative thought patterns that keep somebody fenced in a depressive state. When I say I made it out all on my own, I also mean it figuratively. Though I got help from various people, practices and books, it was me who took the steps to get out. And that’s the only way it works.

The funeral pyre in this case draws the image of both the nordic funeral rite and that of witch-burning. After the burning of the mental structures that bring about suffering, a new ego is born. The flesh and the body described as burning and falling off the bone is a metaphor for death of the self or death of the ego. The “true self” remains and is untouched by the flames.

I believe that even after the ego dies, a new one takes its place. This has happened to me, somewhat. My personality has changed radically, though in some things it is the same. Also, it is quite normal for people’s personalities to change throughout their lifetimes. However, understanding the egoic structure of the mind and resolving to keep it at its bare minimum is tremendously liberating.

WARNING: In this song, reference to fires, pyres and burning are metaphors. Do not set yourself or others on fire as a means of liberation from the ego.