Coming from New Zealand, all the music I listen to is not made

When Lorde declared, “Coming from New Zealand, all the music I listen to is not made by New Zealanders. People never come to New Zealand to play a show because it’s in the middle of nowhere,” she spoke not merely of geography, but of the condition of the isolated dreamer. Her words carry the ache of distance, the yearning of one who looks outward across oceans, who feels herself on the edge of the world, watching the great tides of culture pass by. Yet in this very solitude lies the seed of originality, for from the margins of the world come voices unlike any other.

The ancients too knew the burden and blessing of distance. Think of the Greek colonies scattered on the far edges of the Mediterranean—distant from Athens, yet burning with their own unique fire. They lacked the constant presence of the great philosophers, the poets, and the dramatists, but this very absence forced them to shape their own voices, distinct and strange. So it was with Lorde, who grew in the silence of New Zealand’s remoteness, drinking in sounds not her own, then transforming them until they became something entirely hers. Isolation gave birth to originality.

Her words also reveal the longing of those who live “in the middle of nowhere.” Music, for her, was never local, never immediate; it was always a sound from afar, a promise carried over airwaves. To hear these voices from distant lands was to peer through a window into another world, grander and louder than her own. Yet this distance did not diminish her—it sharpened her hunger. She became not a passive listener, but a translator, turning the distant pulse of foreign music into her own intimate expression.

History gives us an echo in the story of Emily Dickinson, who lived far from the literary circles of her age. She, too, might have lamented that no great poets came to her quiet town, that she was “in the middle of nowhere.” Yet in that solitude she composed verses unlike any others, poems distilled from silence, fierce in originality. Like Lorde, she shows us that genius often blooms not in the center of the crowd, but at the edge of the map.

There is also resilience in Lorde’s words. She does not speak with bitterness, but with matter-of-fact clarity. To live far away is to be forgotten by the world, yes—but it is also to be free from its noise, to listen more closely to the self. Her music was forged in this paradox: the hunger for a world she could not touch, and the clarity of vision that came from being untouched by its constant presence. From the “middle of nowhere,” she created a sound that reached everywhere.

The lesson is clear: never despise your place, even if it feels far from the heart of things. Isolation can be your strength, for it forces you to look inward and to cultivate a voice unshaped by the constant chatter of the crowd. If you feel forgotten, remember that many of the world’s most enduring voices were once unheard in their own time and place. It is not where you stand on the map, but what you do with the silence around you, that determines the strength of your song.

Practically, this means using your environment—no matter how obscure or remote—as the forge for your art and your life. Read the great works, listen to the distant voices, but transform them in your own solitude. Do not wait for the world to come to you; bring the world forth from within yourself. In this way, you will discover, as Lorde did, that even from the middle of nowhere, your voice can reach everywhere.

Thus, Lorde’s lament becomes a hymn of power. To be from New Zealand, or from any land that feels distant and forgotten, is not a curse but a calling. It is proof that music and greatness are not the property of the centers of the world, but can rise from its edges, from its silences, from its forgotten places. And so the teaching is this: do not despise the “middle of nowhere.” For it is often from there that the voices come which the whole world cannot forget.