'Extraordinary Life' by Gordi

In this episode of The Sound of Healing, Jason Amoroso sits down with Australian singer-songwriter Gordi to explore the story behind her beloved song “Extraordinary Life.”

Together they listen to the song and unpack the deeper meaning within it. Gordi shares how the song emerged during a time of profound personal change, as she was navigating identity, coming out, and questioning the life she thought she would live.

The conversation also explores Gordi’s unique path living between two intense worlds. While building an international music career, she was simultaneously completing medical training and later working as a doctor during the COVID pandemic. Witnessing illness, death, and grief gave her a radically different perspective on the fragility and beauty of life, themes that continue to shape her songwriting today.

In this conversation, we explore:

• The story behind “Extraordinary Life”
• How the song has become part of weddings, births, and life transitions for listeners
• Gordi’s experience coming out and rebuilding her vision of the future
• Working as a doctor during the pandemic while continuing her music career
• What witnessing death taught her about the preciousness of life
• What the word healing means to her today

Listen to Gordi’s music:
https://open.spotify.com/artist/6UBMFaCTZnL1Hr1nTOEblM?si=PFtULnjrTwaDT4nQa39RlQ

Learn more about Revelation Breathwork:
 https://revelationbreathwork.com

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Email us at hello@revelationbreathwork.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Welcome back to another episode of The Sound of Healing. In today's show, we're sitting with Gordy, the recording project of Australian artist, songwriter, and medical doctor Sophie Payton. Blending lush electronics with intimate, emotionally honest songwriting, Gordy creates music that feels both cerebral and deeply embodied. Her work explores identity, grief, loss, queerness, family, love, and transformation. And today we're focusing on one of her more popular songs, Extraordinary Life, which is so freaking good, which has also surpassed eight and a half million streams on Spotify. And it's a song I often play in our online Revelation Breathwork classes, and people love to breathe to it. Gordy has said that the ultimate gesture of love is to make someone feel exceptional, like they deserve an extraordinary life. And that comes through in this song. We're going to explore what this means, the origins of the song where Gordy was in her life when she wrote it, her coming out journey, and so much more. It's so this is an extraordinary conversation, and I know you're going to love it. Enjoy. Well, thanks, Gordy. I'm really excited and honored to be here with you, that you're willing to share yourself with us in this way today. Thank you so much for being here.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_03 1:34

We're going to have a lot of fun. I can feel it. And uh as what we do here in uh The Sound of Healing is we we take a song that we breathe to in our Revelation Breath Work classes that just really impacts people deeply, the messaging, the energy of it, and the lyrics of it. And we break it down. So we focus on one song. And today, I mean, you have an incredible catalog. We could pick a hundred of your songs, uh, but today we're focusing on extraordinary life. And so what we like to do here to start the episode is we'll listen to it together and then we'll dive in. Are you up for that?

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Absolutely. Cool. Yeah, bring it on.

Listening To Extraordinary Life Together

SPEAKER_03 2:12

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

I wanna give you a fuck, Gordy.

Pride In A Dark Horse Anthem

SPEAKER_03 5:53

That is so good. Oh man. Wha uh what what are you feeling? What do you feel when you listen to that song in the body now?

SPEAKER_02 6:03

Uh I mean, I feel um I feel really proud, you know, o of of the song, like of its you know, like as if the song is its own little person, um, because I think, you know, I think of like where it began and I've just spent the year like touring a lot, um, you know, pretty solidly from sort of April to November all around the world, and it's really been the first time I've done that since that record came out, because you know, the pandemic, obviously I didn't really tour and then I hadn't had a major release out, so um I kind of have had the first opportunity this year since that song came out to see how much it connects with people and without fail, it is like the song in the set every night that I play it wherever I am in the world where I hear people, you know, like really clearly connecting to it and singing to it, and you hear once that first little like uh starts people yes in the audience and you know it it's so sweet like that people have had that connection with it, and you know, we we called it the dark horse of that of my second album because it wasn't marketed as a single or you know, it was kind of like a bit of a focus release when the when that record came out, but um but yeah, it was also a song that lots of people tried to talk me into doing a million different ways and um I think like yeah, I had to really sort of hold fast to the to the vision that I had for it. Um and I just feel really, really proud that it's you know, that it's done its thing and and that people have connected to it so so deeply because um I really wasn't, you know, and I think this is probably when you make the best songs. Like I wasn't thinking about anyone or anything else when I wrote it. You know, it's just it just came purely from me and where I was in my life at that point. I wasn't sort of thinking, I wonder how the audience will relate to this, or I wonder, you know, how this will go down. It just it's a very kind of yeah, genuine moment that's um, you know, and and it's uh it's unafraid of being, you know, like uh over the top in in a declaration of love and you know, it's it's um it's very genuine, which I think, you know, so it I guess it gives me the warm and fuzzies in a nutshell.

Origins: Love, Queerness, Upheaval

SPEAKER_03 8:23

I I'll just can I share my experience of listening to it. Um it every time I listen and I've listened to that song a lot, uh, it makes me think of all the people in my life that I love. Like I've got four kids, so like I want to give you an extraordinary life, thinking about my wife, like my family. It's just like direct. I'm sure you've heard that before, but um, that's what it brings up for me. Um can you share, like you did a little bit, the origins, like where you were in your life when you wrote it, how the song came about, the kind of origin of it.

Stairwells, Touring, And The Hook

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Yeah, absolutely. I remember it like clear as day. Um it was a it was a really it was a kind it was a bit of a traumatic time in my life, to be honest, but it was kind of I I felt like I was living at the ends of the spectrum of life, um, because I was falling in love for the first time. Um, but I was always I I was also coming to terms with uh being with with the with my queerness, you know, because my whole life that had not been part of the equation in in my head. Um and then I met this person and you know, she just kind of uh blew my brain up and and and blew my life up in the best way, but you know, like I I come from a really small country town uh in the middle of Australia and um uh it's you know that I went to Catholic Church every Sunday and um it was not a town where um you know there were a lot of queer people around, so like I and and I kinda grew up with just a sense that that was not you know, that there was something kind of wrong with that path. Um and so I had a lot of complicated feelings about falling in love with this person because I'm thinking, you know, well shit, like does this mean I'm gonna have to, you know, uh say farewell to people in my life who've known me for a long time. Is this gonna destroy lots of relationships that I have? Um and so, you know, there's a lot of songs on that record that are about that, but this song is just about the the falling in love part, you know, it's kind of like uh I I I had just so it was it was in 2017 um and I in this in the space of about two weeks I had finished medical school, um, like my sat my big final exams and I had also put out my debut record reservoir. Um and so I and I was like 24 years old um and I just felt like you know, I had these two enormous life events and then in the sort of mix of that somewhere I had um you know met this person um and I just felt like I was kind of living moment to moment um and it had sort of all the like beauty and chaos I think that comes with any time you sort of deeply fall in love with someone. Um and then, you know, out of that sort of like total haze, I um went back out on tour and I was uh on tour for maybe six weeks around Europe with this Icelandic artist named Auskir and I was riding on his tour bus, so it was me and about thirteen Icelandic men. Um and so most of them spoke in Icelandic the whole time, so I was kind of like there by myself, like pretty isolated, and you know, I'm like texting and calling this person I'm falling in love with, and but no one really knows that this is happening, and so it was just this kind of crazy time, and um I was sitting in a stairwell at one of the venues, I think in, I don't know, Belgium or Germany, and the venues that we were playing in were these really, you know, big, beautiful places and so all the stairwells were enormous, um and the main band was sound checking and I was um I I kind of w w was starting to write this song in in the stairwell and e each venue we would go to, I would kind of go to the stairwell because it had such nice, you know, reverberant quality, um, and I would start to write this song. And then I remember being in uh in a in a hotel in Ghent. Um and I was uh I was it was like 2 a.m. and we had like we were only gonna sleep there for four hours before we had to drive the next day, and I was I had a shower and I was in the shower and I just kinda started humming this like mmm mmm and it just got stuck in my head, and so the next stairwell I got to, I recorded that thing, and then I got to the next stairwell, and I recorded it again and I started kind of layering them up on my laptop. Um and then that essentially started to form this song, and then all the words kind of like coalesced and um and the song came together like really, really quickly, um, after it had sort of just been ruminating for a little minute. Um and yeah, by the time I I came home, um I had this song in my hand and I, you know, committed to the relationship in front of me and told my friends and family and started my the new chapter of my life.

SPEAKER_03 13:51

What and so you played or you sang this this song for the person?

SPEAKER_02 13:57

Um, I I mean I don't really remember like singing it for them, you know, like in a in a in a room, but I think, you know, I'd I'd made it and I I I'm sure I I sent it to them at um at some point. But uh but yeah, it's not not really my style to be like, I've written this song about you. Sit here in front of me while I play it. Um but no, she she heard it eventually and now she's heard it many times.

SPEAKER_03 14:21

And what was that like coming home and was that the first time you came out for your family and friends in your community?

SPEAKER_02 14:27

Yep, yep. It was uh it was pretty gnarly. Yep. I mean it was, you know, uh the the bullet points are that it's it all it all ended up okay. Um but you know, it was it's uh like an indescribably uh frightening thing to do because, you know, you're you're sitting with the reality that something you're about to tell someone is, you know, gonna change your relationship forever and and may change it for the worse. And you know, these are the most important people in your life, but you just have to go in with honesty and and hope that they they reciprocate with love, which fortunately for me the all the important people did.

SPEAKER_03 15:08

And then the album came out after that.

Coming Out To Family And Community

SPEAKER_02 15:10

Yeah, the album came out well so that was that was twenty seventeen, then twenty eighteen I wrote kind of the rest of the record um and was touring all year. And then twenty nineteen I went and I did a year of medical work um and I had like four weeks of annual leave, and that's when I recorded this record um with two of my friends uh back where I grew up in this little cottage like on the farm I grew up on. Um and then the record came out in 2020. So it was kind of like three years between this song being written and the and it coming out on the record.

SPEAKER_03 15:44

Alright, I gotta skip back now because you brought it up. Um life on a farm as a little girl. Did you have siblings? What it was very small town, what was that like? How did that form, you know, how did that influence you?

SPEAKER_02 15:58

Yeah, I mean I'm I'm the youngest of four. Um got an older sister and two older brothers, and uh and I grew up in a house that my father grew up in, that his father grew up in that you know, uh we the family have lived in the in the same house on the same farm for 125 plus years. Um and it's a beautiful place. It's right on the river. Um, you know, we have sheep and uh like grow wheat and canola and loosen and um you know, I grew up riding horses at my friend's place down the road or riding a motorbike or um, you know, moving irrigation pipes and uh building cubby houses in the creek and you know, it was it was extremely idyllic. Sometimes when I talk to my friends about it, they're like, Did you grow up in the fifties? I'm like, maybe. Um, you know, it had this really like yeah, I don't know, it was a pretty pretty idyllic life to be honest. Um and the town, there's like eighteen hundred people who lived there. Um so and you know, I had a lot of cousins and aunts and uncles around and um I played a lot of sports and I uh my mum, you know, uh was teaching piano at the local school. Um and so I like grew up, you know, playing the piano as well and singing while she would play and um yeah, it was a really um, you know, no notes. It was a it was a pretty beautiful life.

SPEAKER_03 17:23

Wow, and and going back to the song, uh when you it sounds like w you say when you wrote it, it like the lyrics came first.

From Farm Roots To Songcraft

SPEAKER_02 17:33

Yeah, it it was kind of like the um sort of the lyrics were were like it they felt like little puzzle pieces that weren't you know, weren't fitting together, but I kinda had little words and phrases and then once that kind of hook, that vocal hook, like the the main, you know, uh thing came, it was like that just really was the glue that kind of brought everything together. Um and yeah, I loved the sort of like you know, the meditative repetition that that that vocal hook um brought and yeah, and and the the the version like the little recordings that I took in the stairwell of that vocal line ended up that that's what you hear in in the final song.

SPEAKER_03 18:18

So without getting too personal, would you be willing to share like maybe the the the main lesson you learned from that relationship?

The Vocal Loop That Glued It Together

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Um I think um you know, when it came time to put that record out, um I remember like uh starting to do press for that record, you know, interviews and whatever and and like I had a really hard time initially talking about it because I thought, you know, it's funny with albums, you like you you make well, I make music about things that I can't articulate, and then once you make the record you then have to go and articulate those things that are inarticulable. Um But uh I think like, you know, I struggled to begin with with that record because I was like there's a funny disassociation that happens where like I've written these songs in private and then they become public, you know, which is which is with with my permission. But then the idea of having to sort of dissect them in public um suddenly was filling me with with anxiety. But I think I guess to answer your question, like you know, the the main takeaway from the relationship and you know, through that process was that honesty is incredibly liberating, you know, just to kind of be like yeah, this is what happened, this is what happened to me, this is how I feel about it, you know, and and I know sometimes I listen to, I don't know, podcasts or whatever, someone talking about intimate details of their life and I'm like, damn. I can't believe that person is sharing all that stuff, you know, in such a public setting. But um there's something really f like so freeing about it, especially, you know, coming from queerness where so much of it is about shame and hiding this part of yourself, or else, you know, if you can flip that coin, the other side is immense pride um in in being, you know, really comfortable with who you are and really, really knowing yourself in a way that some people never do. Um and you know, uh the the yeah, the liberation that came from just being like, I'm just gonna tell the truth was was really, really freeing, and I don't think I would have ever arrived at that without the relationship.

Honesty As Liberation

SPEAKER_03 20:41

Wow. Uh thank you for sharing that. Yeah, the the truth will set you free. I'm in a men's group that I that I co-lead, and we had this we we start each uh session with a quote. And this doesn't kind of it kind of relates to what you shared, but the quote is the truth will set you free, but first it'll piss you off. So it's a little bit um all right. So let's talk. You shared a little bit, but I would love to hear more about like f the the response that you've received, stories people have shared about how impactful the song has been to so many people.

Weddings, Births, And Listener Stories

SPEAKER_02 21:16

Yeah, I mean, like the like the the first part of it is is how many people have walked down the aisle to this song at their weddings, you know, and um including some of my friends. I've sung this this song at like, I don't know, maybe five of my friends' weddings. And all of them think, you know, no, this is now my song, and you know, or whoever else it is, and all like it always without fail at the merch desk, you know, at the end of the night I'll have one couple come up and say, We we just got married to this song, we're about to get married to this song. Um, which is really, really sweet. And then I had someone recently tell me that they had this song on loop when they were in labor, you know, giving birth to their child. Hopefully they don't uh you know, associate negative mem memories with it now. Um and then, you know, some people I mean th the the the blessing and the curse that is social media, um I get to see a lot of people tag the song in like, you know, it's a video of their cat or they're walking their dog or um, you know, they're like the there's a real association with like pets as well. Um and yeah I think people seem to like, you know, really grab onto that idea that it's like it's not like we're it's not just about survival, you know, with this relationship isn't just about what I need, it's also about what I want and here are all the things that I want to give you and and here are all the ways I want to, you know, provide for you. And um I think that kind of like you know the the intense sort of commitment that comes across in the song and sort of this like really unfiltered um you know I want to I want to give you the best. Like I and and it's kind of not it's there's no cynicism in this song at all. And I think maybe that's why people often you know it's like the pets and babies of whatever that people associate it with. But um I think it you know it does like it it um it captures sort of that like the early stage of love but but the kind of that that long term you know or of of the life that we want to have together. So yeah it's um it's it's it's really special to to interact with people and and see this song have a life of its own.

SPEAKER_03 23:33

Yeah thank you for sharing that you shared about um I wonder if you could share people fans you've shared about the the the raw vulnerable like coming out and sharing through your art and how other people when you hear my podcast when they're really raw and vulnerable whoa I can't believe they shared that but you do that in your in your music what response or feedback have you gotten from other queer people about that because it takes a lot of courage.

Queer Community Connection And Healing

SPEAKER_02 24:01

Yeah no that's been huge you know and I think I you know it wasn't surprising when that happened but it wasn't something I'd been thinking about with that second record because you know I'd just been so in my own life um and I just had written that record and this song from just such an insular kind of you know uh emotionally isolated place. Um and yeah it was I mean that was that was a really like I think that second record for me was um it was it was kind of traumatic in a sense to release and but then it was immensely healing and that was a big part of you know the the connection with the queer community was obviously something I'd never had before having having not you know previously identified as as part of that community and um and it's you know it exists everywhere everywhere I play there is a a presence from you know from that community um and you know on whether it's online or in person like um I've had some really amazing messages from people um because on on that record there's a song called uh sandwiches and that was about um you know I was extremely extremely close with my grandmother who kind of passed away in in the midst of those years that I've been talking about um but I was able to to sort of come out to her in you know essentially like a month before she passed away and she was able to meet my partner and um and you know it was a um it sort of felt like such a beautiful and sad end to that that chapter and I had this beautiful message from someone online who said you know reading about listening to that song and reading about it um helped me come out to my grandparents who I'm very close with as well and and you know being able to sort of talk about your story um was kind of a vehicle for me to to talk about mine um and you know I think that those moments um those moments of kind of coming out can be so profoundly lonely you know because you're really uh the the fear of rejection for people in your life is is so high and I think that you know having that like that sense of community that sense that you're not alone in this that other people have gone through this that other people will go through this in the future um is you know it it can really abate that sense of of of loneliness and and and bring that kind of like togetherness in in those in those terrifying kind of moments yeah thank you for sharing that and you shared about your grandmother and her passing and you've shared that you are a doctor are you doctor Dr.

SPEAKER_03 27:00

Gordy Dr. Gordy and that you practiced during the pandemic and you were in in the hospital and making music at the same time like your relationship with uh death and grief and loss um is is different than most because of your closeness. I think we've all had experiences with death in some way but there's something um you know unique about your experience there and I'd love to hear you share a little bit more about that that process and how it's informed your life and your music and how you see life and your art yeah I mean I you know I guess my relationship with death really uh you know started with with my grandmother.

Medicine, Death, And Plastocene

SPEAKER_02 27:49

Um you know I had experienced grief before then but but sort of nothing in the in the shape of this and um I was you know at her bedside when she died um surrounded by my my aunts and uncles, my dad and my mum um and uh that was a you know a a pretty profound experience. Um and in the months that followed I was wrapping up my kind of medical pre, you know, internship training and I was assigned to geriatrics um and lots of people pass away on the geriatrics ward simply because they are you know um older and I had to learn in those in those m subsequent months the examination of certifying death um and you know I'd just been with my grandmother and and then I'm sort of you know day after day seeing sort of these people who have who have just died and it was a pretty like pretty full on time um but you know there's nothing like desensitization to help someone move move through uh painful feelings um and it was just uh you know I I basically was um learning how to do this exam and when you when you observe somebody just after they've passed away you have to sort of essentially tick some boxes you know and so you perform the exam and you uh you're checking for absence of life so you are listening to their chest to hear that there are no breath sounds there's no heartbeat um you're you know making sure there are no reflexes you're making sure they're not responding to you in any way um to your voice or um you know it's uh it's a strange kind of process and I had this um this sort of as I was conducting this exam over and over again um back in 2018 I was reminded of this memory and it sounds really weird but um I was thinking of this memory of playing with play-doh as a child you know like that sort of funny substance which you put into all these shapes and I remember like sitting at my sitting at the kitchen table at home and putting it through a little you know machine and you kind of spit it out like spaghetti and then you put it up together and you you know make it into some new shape. And then I would go to bed and I would come out the next morning and if I hadn't packed it away it would kind of have this sort of just waxy kind of film on it, like it had just you know like I'd left it and it had set in place. Um and that was what I was that's what what Certifying Death reminded me of, as kind of macabre as that might sound, like it was it made me think of of Plostocine and I kind of ruminated on that subject for years and years and I just put out a record this year called like Plastocine um and you know I in the seven years that I ruminated on it I thought about how if we're kind of like Plastocine in death, you know, if we sort of if we have this kind of film come over us as we set in place how are we like Plastocine in life. You know Plastocine is an unbreakable substance it can be pushed into all sorts of different shapes you know put under heat put under cold um and you know I think about the chapters of my life whether it's queerness whether it's the you know dealing with grief whether it's just growing older um and all the kind of shapes that I have had to fit into and and and will continue to and and you know that maybe we are we are moulding and remoulding ourselves until we die and and and then we you know in death we sort of finally have that peaceful form which we take and I I think that's such a a beautiful idea um and yeah something that that I've clearly spent a lot of time thinking about you had visits or dreams um with your grandmother since I have yes I have I I got them a lot in the beginning um and you know I've I've I found it really sad when they stopped happening but I actually had one recently um I think it's you know with the record coming out and um thinking thinking more you know about all of that and yeah this time um you know she didn't say anything we were just sitting on some steps together and um yeah I I really really cherish those those dreams when they happen and I'm um I'm always so miffed when I wake up and and they're over but but uh but yeah I I I really look forward to those when they happen.

SPEAKER_03 32:51

Yeah my brother passed away January 21 and he makes an appearance uh every now and then which is kind of cool um makes you think about life um and the unreality of death let's just put it that way changing forms but you you've shared this idea of the of the Plastocene of the malleability of the of the chapters of your life um are you willing to share you've had you kind of shared some of these chapters what chapter do you feel like you're in now yeah I think um I feel like I'm in a um like I I I do feel like I'm in a bit of a transition point right now where or maybe I'm sort of starting to come out of one um you know I'm hitting an age where some of my friends are having kids and getting married and you know their lives are starting to look a little different from how they've looked for the first ten years that I might have known them.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

I think that I think in in being both a musician and a queer person you sort of have this kind of funny association with time and with the sort of quote unquote normal constructs that you know people often pass through as as these different sort of stages of life hit. And yeah it's I think like I'm trying to figure out my place in some of those constructs and which ones apply to me and which ones don't and um you know I mean the the classic trope is like the in your 30s you're you're figuring out all the things that you don't want um and I think that's that's definitely the um you know the sort of phase that I'm in but the you know the pandemic really kind of I mean robbed a few years from everyone but I think it sort of warped a bit of time um for at least for for me and my peers um and so I think people are playing catch up a little bit on on some of those ideas but um me I'm still trying to be in as many places at one time as I can um and you know be be uh playing shows and and making music and um that's kind of my you know that's the the the phase of life I'm in right now is to really like squeeze myself like a sponge um and just get you know get as much kind of output and and and and play as many shows as I as I can so I get to December at the end of every year and I'm ready to have a long lie down.

SPEAKER_03 35:27

Are you going on tour next summer and next year as well?

Dreams, Grief, And Meaning

Time, Life Stages, And Transition

SPEAKER_02 35:31

Yeah I mean I think I've got a little break now well and I mean I'm playing like a festival every weekend in Australia this because it's summer here. Um but then I'll have like maybe a month off playing shows in sort of February March to make some new music and then um yeah start up again in in sort of April and and beyond. And that's a different that is a certain kind of life being on the road and traveling and just being really really busy it is it is and um yeah I think like to go back to your previous question it's sort of I think maybe you know five or or more years ago I sort of felt like you know my life was chaotic but everyone around me their life was chaotic too and it's sort of an interesting juxtaposition as my life continues to be chaotic you know with how much travel and touring there is as you know some some of the people's lives around me start to become much well maybe chaotic in a different way but but um but a little more um yeah a little more in in the same place or um doing kind of different things and and uh yeah I sort of feel like I'm about at at a at a little like intersection in in life where it's like some people are going this way and some people are going this way and I'm not sure I'm uh yeah I'm going hopefully forwards in some direction How do you stay grounded and connected to yourself with you know the the travel and the demands and all the things yeah I mean I um it's not always easy you know like there's definitely been points this year when I mean I don't think between April and November I was in the same place for more than, you know, maybe I had a couple of stints of 10 days somewhere but otherwise it was kind of constantly on the road and um yeah there are there are points where I um definitely kind of come undone and have to put myself back together again. But um you know I I've tried to uh really focus on the ways I can kind of foster my own resilience which is like you know going on a run doing some meditation and breathing doing some writing um and you know getting like making those practices really habitual when I'm on the road um and the other thing is is FaceTime um facetiming my nieces my nephews my you know my sister my parents my friends um just like you know trying to stay connected to reality um because touring is is is not really reality yeah that's so important and I appreciate you sharing some of the actual you know the the the practices that you have that help you because I think people are always looking for their thing.

SPEAKER_03 38:18

There's so many different things and finding your thing is so important. All right coming down the home stretch Gordy if you're game for a couple more we talked about the the name of the show is the sound of healing and before we started here we talked about what healing what does healing mean to you like how do you define healing and maybe how has that definition shifted over time for you yeah I think like you know healing is a is an interesting word um like when I was at medical school you know there's so much obviously focus as you would expect there to be on you know diagnosis and treatment and when I was working in the emergency department during COVID um you know we'd have people come in who we'd call frequent flyers people who would kind of come in over and over again um and you know sometimes I'd be looking at their history and I'd think you know like why are they here again?

Touring Chaos And Staying Grounded

SPEAKER_02 39:17

Like they've this problem has been managed and they've got the medication and you know why is it that they're coming in and um you know like I reckon 80% of the time it was because they they needed something else like that and it wasn't wasn't medicine. You know they didn't need a tablet to go home with um they needed maybe to understand what was going on or maybe they actually just needed connection um and someone to talk to for 45 minutes. And you know that that was particularly true of kind of the elderly in the community who a lot of whom lived alone during COVID and were probably spending a lot of time isolated. And you know I think that that yeah we we can have such a narrow definition particularly in medicine of kind of what healing is it's like well that thing's cut open so let's stitch it up and send them home but you know what of that that what of that person's experience in the hospital you know well what if they now have you know so much trauma associated with that time that they don't want to take that tablet in the morning or they don't take care of themselves anymore because they feel depressed or you know they don't feel um like going from one day to the next is worthwhile because they're lacking that connection. So I think within my understanding of healing in medicine that you know even in my sort of brief like in in my in my time practicing um I was sort of starting to unpick that and and what I might have like learned in an academic setting and what it actually means in real life. And then you know it was a really interesting juxtaposition during the pandemic of um talking about what industries are essential and in medicine I was working in an essential industry so I could drive my car to the hospital every day and like you know like the the rules of lockdown didn't apply to people working in essential industries people working in music you know no way you could go out and work or put on a live performance um and you know I spent a lot of time thinking about that like what is what does essential mean? You know like essential to our survival but you know if maybe music isn't essential to us breathing and our heart beating but it is essential to us living you know because what is kind of survival versus living and I think that really kind of plays into healing because you know if we are healed then we are healed in a in a whole way you know we're kind of living our best life and we are you know physically and and mentally and spiritually able to kind of move through from one day to the next with kind of hope and joy and resilience and um you know that that is such a kind of multifaceted indescribable thing. And I think that there are literal ways to to heal wounds but then there are lots of other ways to um to heal ourselves and I think music is is a really important part of that.

SPEAKER_03 42:38

So beautiful thank you so much and the distinction you make between the physical and the emotional and the human and music and gathering and being together and sharing and listening and having a a common experience from the heart of just what it is to be alive is really really really powerful. Thank you. Last question uh younger self what is your younger self what what if you go back and share something with your younger self pick the age and uh what would you share? What wisdom would you share? You can't say like buy Apple stock or anything like that. What wisdom would you share?

Redefining Healing Beyond Medicine

SPEAKER_02 43:19

You know I have been um my my parents are in the sort of they get offended when I say they're in their late sixties, but they are in their late sixties. They're like 68 and 69. And we've been talking a lot about their uh you know like what the next phase of their life looks like and what is retiring and you know they've worked their whole bloody life on the farm and um and I bought them I bought them this little book um called Ikigai which is like about the Japanese philosophy around you know living um and I was kind of flicking through it the other day um and you know I was um I was struck by um you know th though there are lots of challenging things about pursuing music and it's not um might not be a sound economic decision but um I uh I was really struck reading the book by how much how how lucky I felt that I've been able to find this thing that I love that I that is you know that is so um special to me and and feels like a secret language that I have the privilege of knowing um and that I have the privilege of being able to to share with people and I think that uh you know going back to my to my younger self you know in high school and and throughout my life there was a lot of focus on you know academics I I mean I s ended up studying medicine so you know there was a lot of kind of I I I put a lot of pressure on myself as a teenager to sort of um you know tick a lot of boxes and I think what I would tell that that little version of myself, maybe maybe the twelve year old who had just really fallen in love with songwriting because of an album that I'd got for my birthday. I think I would tell them about Ikigai and be like, you know, the the like if you are luck if you are one of the lucky people that can find something that you truly love and that you may be able to make a living from, you should just do everything you can to make that work because like, you know, it it feels like when it works it feels like beating the simulation. You know the how many people I know now who are in jobs they bloody hate and you know doing things that they don't enjoy and you know they're just kind of getting through the Monday to Friday to live for a weekend like, you know, and then that's that's the reality of of lots of life for people. Um and I think if you can if you have some way of of of you know of that not being your reality of kind of finding something you really love and and making that work then it is it is worth everything to to make happen.

SPEAKER_03 46:04

So that's what I would tell my little 12 year old self damn yes amen Gordy and you we I think we all have that in us like everyone has some spark if the if the if one is willing to have the courage to follow that because it does take courage it does take stepping out of the boxes of our own environment or upbringing or whatever it is right that's the nature of life is to kind of test us in that way. It's the hero's journey and uh and yeah when when one does that like like you have and you are doing it it's one of one there's there's no competition there's no one expression like you on the planet and you're and you're giving the gift like you are God expressed through in and as the unique flavor that is Gordy and the whole world gets the benefit from that. And so um just want to reflect that back to you that you are absolutely living your icky guy and uh and I feel like I am too like I had a traditional path I'm an attorney by trade I've done all these things but it was like oh this other side that the the the sense of the artist the healer the lover wants to come out too and so it it takes a lot of courage it takes a lot of showing up risking failure you know the judgments from the old conditioning and stepping out and um yeah so I just uh I'm acknowledging you and I appreciate you and I thank you so much for being here. Uh how can we all participate more in your world?

SPEAKER_02 47:36

Uh well I have yeah this record that came out in August which is kind of everywhere you would expect to find it. And I'll be playing shows on on uh most continents next year. So um I have like a mailing list which you can sign up to from from the website Gordymusic.com and I find that sometimes the algorithm doesn't tell us when some of our favorite artists are coming to town so the best way to stay um up to date is on the mailing list.

SPEAKER_03 48:06

And merch and you know because I know streaming platforms may not be the highest percentage of paying at so merch do you sell you know LPs, vinyl all all on all on the website Gordymusic.com you can find it over there. Support your artists and I'm telling you this now uh count me in for two tickets to one of your shows that I want to purchase and you can donate to somebody who maybe either can't afford it or some you know soul that shows up to your show, sold out show but you got two extras that you know one of your staff members can give them um for sure. So uh yeah. Thank you so much for making the time Gordy really appreciate you.