Earlier this year, Joshua Burnside released “It’s Not Going to be Okay”, an album he wrote and recorded after and about the death of his best friend, the musician Dean Jendoubi. In his review of the album, Thomas Blake writes: “Burnside is explicit about the role of grief on It’s Not Going to Be Okay, but also about the presence of love and hope. His songs have a caressing softness, even as they weep…That glimmer of hope is carried in part by Burnside’s gift as a songwriter, his knack for a melody. It’s as if he knows that, even in the darkest moments, his art can provide a small light.”
Directed, shot and edited by Jake Duncan, and starring Sy Tuck and Grace Gallagher, Burnside has now shared a powerful video for the title track; it opens:
I am all of your
Greatest nightmares come true
Everything wrong with the world
And everything wrong with you
Every verse of his song is a sobering reflection on suffering and grief, calling to mind Tennyson’s Ulysses: I am a part of all that I have met. A reminder that we are a mosaic of our experiences, the good and the bad, the happy and the sad.
Burnside said of the album:
“Grief has always been a big part of my music; it’s the reason I started writing songs when I was 13. And so, as I did all those years ago, I reach for the guitar, try a few chords and sing a few words and for a brief moment I feel like it’s going to be okay.”
The meaning of this album may change over time for Burnside: as he moves away from grief, it may move with him. But it will remain a stunning, haunting evocation of personal loss to anyone who hears it.
Thomas Blake, KLOF Mag