· 6 min read
Borges and I
Music by Franklin Baldo — Borges and I, with three other musical versions of the same text (greentext, glitch rap)
Listen to the music
Borges and I
spoken word · folk · 2:57
> be me Borges (2025 — greentext version)
indie · spoken word · 3:08
> be me Borges (2026 — new version)
indie · spoken word · 6:53
Borges and me (glitch rap)
hip-hop · glitch · 2:19
This post gathers four musical settings of the same text — "Borges e eu" ("Borges y yo"), the two-page essay in which Borges stages, without resolving, the split between the self who lives and the self who writes. The first three were composed between October 2025 and June 2026, each as its own post; the fourth arrived in July 2026, nearly a year later, when I asked Suno to try the 2025 greentext lyrics again. Rather than publish the new take as another orphaned post, I folded all four together here. Given that the essay is precisely about a self that multiplies into versions it no longer controls, that felt like the right move.
Borges e eu (classical guitar + bandoneon, PT)
Lyrics
Ao outro, a Borges, é que sucedem as coisas.
Eu caminho por Buenos Aires e me demoro, talvez já mecanicamente,
para olhar o arco de um vestíbulo e o portão gradeado;
de Borges tenho notícias pelo correio
e vejo seu nome em uma lista tríplice de professores ou em um dicionário biográfico.
Agradam-me os relógios de areia, os mapas, a tipografia do século dezoito, as etimologias, o gosto do café e a prosa de Stevenson;
o outro compartilha essas preferências,
mas de um modo vaidoso que as transforma em atributos de um ator.
Seria exagerado afirmar que nossa relação é hostil;
eu vivo,
eu me deixo viver,
para que Borges possa tramar sua literatura,
e essa literatura me justifica.
Não me custa nada confessar que alcançou certas páginas válidas,
mas estas páginas não podem salvar-me,
talvez porque o bom já não seja de ninguém,
nem mesmo do outro,
mas da linguagem ou da tradição.
Além disso,
eu estou destinado a perder-me,
definitivamente,
e só algum instante de mim poderá sobreviver no outro.
Pouco a pouco vou cedendo-lhe tudo,
embora conheça seu perverso costume de falsear e magnificar.
Spinoza entendeu que todas as coisas querem perseverar em seu ser;
a pedra eternamente quer ser pedra e o tigre um tigre.
Eu permanecerei em Borges, não em mim
(se é que sou alguém),
mas me reconheço menos em seus livros do que em muitos outros
ou do que no laborioso rasqueado de uma guitarra.
Há alguns anos tentei livrar-me dele
e passei das mitologias do arrabalde aos jogos com o tempo e com o infinito,
mas esses jogos agora são de Borges
e terei que imaginar outras coisas.
Assim minha vida é uma fuga
e tudo eu perco e tudo é do esquecimento,
ou do outro.
Não sei qual dos dois escreve esta página.Composer Notes
This text has followed me for more than fifteen years. "Borges y yo" — here rendered in its Portuguese translation, as that was the version closest to me — is barely a page long, and it resolves, or rather stages without resolving, a tension that anyone who writes knows in some form: what belongs to the public author and what belongs to whoever wakes up in the morning not yet knowing what they'll think. Borges names this with a precision that unsettles me. "I live, I let myself live, so that Borges may contrive his literature, and this literature justifies me." Justifies, not liberates. There's a submission there that's too honest to be comfortable.
Setting the essay in Portuguese with classical guitar and bandoneon was an attempt to return to the text the accent of Buenos Aires without erasing it — to keep the geographical distance, the Spanish pressing through the translation. Suno captured the Argentine intonation I asked for. The result has the quality of something read aloud to oneself at three in the morning, not for an audience. That seemed right.
What moves me most in this essay, and what makes it different from a text about creativity or authorial identity, is the final sentence: "I do not know which of us has written this page." Borges leaves the question unanswered not out of modesty but because the question has no answer — because the distinction between the self that lives and the self that writes may itself be a product of writing. I carry a version of this problem in my own work. Events All the Way Down exists because someone wakes up and takes notes, but the one who takes notes, under the process ontology I defend there, is not quite the same someone who will wake up tomorrow. Borges arrived at the same threshold by other paths, with the elegance of someone who didn't need process ontology to get there. This distinction resonates uniquely when considering how identity fragments under the weight of one's work. The tension Borges describes reflects the ongoing struggle between raw experience and its polished representation, challenging the reader to question whether we are the authors of our own narratives or merely vehicles for a language that transcends us.
Other versions
> be me Borges (2025 — greentext version)
Lyrics
> be me
> walk around buenos aires
> stop to look at archways and iron gates
> probably just force of habit at this point
> there's this other guy, also me
> Borges
> he gets all the mail
> his name shows up on professor lists
> sees himself in biographical dictionaries
> we both like the same stuff
> hourglasses, old maps, eighteenth century fonts
> etymology, coffee, stevenson's prose
> but when he likes them it's performative
> like an actor doing a bit
> my face when I live my life so Borges can write his literature
> his literature is supposedly my justification for existing
> he's written some decent pages, not gonna lie
> but those pages can't save me
> the good stuff belongs to language itself, not to either of us
> eventually I'm gonna fade away completely
> only some moment of me will survive in Borges
> slowly giving him everything
> he has this annoying habit of distorting and exaggerating everything
> spinoza said all things want to keep being themselves
> rocks want to be rocks, tigers want to be tigers
> I'll remain in Borges, not in myself
> if I even am someone
> but I recognize myself less in his books
> than in some random guitar strumming
> tried to escape him a few years back
> moved from neighborhood myths to games with time and infinity
> now those games belong to Borges too
> gotta think up new things
> my whole life is just running away
> losing everything
> everything goes to oblivion or to Borges
> don't even know which one of us is writing this
> my face whenComposer Notes
"Borges and I" is one of the shortest and most unsolvable texts Borges wrote — two pages about the impossibility of being simultaneously the subject who lives and the writer who transforms that life into work. I wanted to make a version that rendered visible what the text feels but does not declare: the exasperation, the crooked humor, the absurdity of discovering that your identity has been outsourced to a name that appears in biographical dictionaries.
The greentext format — the imageboard convention of > be me — seemed like the right vehicle. It has the same structure as the original text: fragmented, laconic first person that refuses pathos but is full of content. And it has that specific irony of someone documenting a ridiculous situation while living inside it. My face when is the modern equivalent of "I do not know which of the two writes this page."
Suno interpreted the request for bandoneon and lo-fi indie in a way that surprised me — it came out more melancholic than I expected, almost devotional. Not exactly what I asked for. But perhaps it's what the text asked for. The last line — "don't even know which one of us is writing this" — landed with a reverberation I hadn't planned. Sometimes the instrument knows before the musician does.
> be me Borges (2026 — new version)
Lyrics
be me
walking around buenos aires
stopping for archways
iron gates
shadows on old buildings
probably force of habit
probably collecting details
for someone else
[Verse 1]
there's this other guy
also me
Borges
he gets all the mail
his name appears
on envelopes
professor lists
biographical dictionaries
people study his childhood
his influences
his recurring themes
I see myself
in shop windows
for half a second
before the angle changes
he has my face
more or less
my memories
more or less
my name
completely
[Anti-Chorus]
my face when
I live my life
so Borges can write his literature
my face when
he gets the name
and I get the weather
my face when
I walk through buenos aires
and he gets buenos aires
[Verse 2]
we like the same things
hourglasses
old maps
eighteenth century fonts
etymology
coffee
Stevenson's prose
but when I like them
I think I actually like them
when Borges likes them
it feels performative
like an actor
doing a very convincing bit
about being me
I give him a courtyard
a knife
a sentence overheard in a café
he adds mirrors
tigers
infinity
a dead theologian
suddenly it's literature
not gonna lie
some of the pages are good
this is part of the problem
[Anti-Chorus]
my face when
the literature is beautiful
but it still cannot save me
my face when
the good lines belong to language
not to him
not to me
language gets the custody
[Verse 3]
eventually
I'll fade away completely
maybe one moment survives
inside Borges
a morning
a fear
rain against one window
he'll keep it
then distort it
and exaggerate it
I give him an afternoon
he returns it
as a labyrinth
I give him a dream
he puts another dream inside it
and now nobody can leave
[Anti-Chorus]
my face when
I slowly give him everything
my face when
he turns my life
into evidence that he existed
my face when
I become a source
the citation outlives the witness
[Verse 4]
Spinoza said
all things want
to keep being themselves
rocks remain rocks
tigers remain tigers
I'm paraphrasing
Borges would know
the exact wording
Borges always knows
the exact wording
that's another thing
he stole
I also want
to remain myself
apparently
but I'll remain in Borges
not in myself
assuming there is a myself
which feels
increasingly optimistic
sometimes I think
I am only the part of Borges
that gets tired
the part that walks home
the part that forgets quotations
the part that answers the door
[Anti-Chorus]
my face when
the tiger remains a tiger
the stone remains a stone
and I remain
a paragraph
in Borges
my face when
I recognize myself less
in everything he wrote
than in some random guitar
strumming through a wall
[Verse 5]
a few years ago
I tried to escape him
left behind
neighborhood myths
dusty courtyards
men with knives
I moved on
to games with time
infinite libraries
people dreaming other people
the universe
as one sentence
misremembering itself
new territory
or so I thought
then those things
became Borges too
of course they did
now time belongs to Borges
infinity belongs to Borges
mirrors belong to Borges
there is probably
a Borges copyright claim
on eternity
[Bridge]
so I think up new things
I keep moving
but he arrives first
already waiting
inside the title
every road I take
to escape him
becomes another road
people call typically Borges
my whole life
is running from the author
who turns the escape
into style
[Final Anti-Chorus]
my face when
I invent a new world
and Borges gets the credit
my face when
I try to disappear
and disappearance becomes
a recurring motif
my face when
he gets the metaphor
and I get older
[Outro — whispered]
losing everything
everything goes
to oblivion
or to Borges
oblivion
or Borges
at least oblivion
doesn't exaggerate
be me
walking around buenos aires
hear a guitar
somewhere nearby
for one second
I recognize myself
not in the books
not in the name
not in the mirrors
just in the sound
then Borges hears it too
and now it belongs to him
probably
I don't know
I don't even know
which one of us
is writing this
my face whenComposer Notes
I asked Suno to try again, almost a year after the first greentext version, without changing the original prompt — I just wanted to see what a different model would do with the same idea. Chirp-fenix came back with a track nearly four times longer: where the 2025 version had five short stanzas and an implied chorus, this one has five full verses, an anti-chorus that repeats and degrades with every return, a bridge, and a whispered outro. "My face when," which used to be punctuation, became structure — the anti-chorus organizes the entire song, almost liturgical from sheer repetition.
What interested me most was what the model added without my asking: "the citation outlives the witness," "there is probably a Borges copyright claim on eternity," "disappearance becomes a recurring motif." These aren't ideas I wrote into the first version — they're elaborations the act of re-recording itself produced, as if the text kept writing itself between one generation and the next. It's almost too on the nose for what "Borges and I" describes: I gave Suno a lyric, it gave back something else, distorted and expanded, and now I don't know which of the two versions is the original. The new version's last line — "I don't even know which one of us is writing this" — didn't change a single word from the first. It just got truer.
Borges and me (glitch rap)
Lyrics
To the other, to Borges, things happen.
I walk through Buenos Aires and linger, perhaps mechanically already,
to look at the arch of a vestibule and the grated gate;
I get news of Borges by mail
and see his name on a triple list of professors or in a biographical dictionary.
I like hourglasses, maps, the typography of the eighteenth century, etymologies, the taste of coffee, and Stevenson's prose;
the other shares these preferences,
but in a vain way that turns them into attributes of an actor.
It would be excessive to state that our relationship is hostile;
I live,
I let myself live,
so that Borges may plot his literature,
and that literature justifies me.
It costs me nothing to confess that he has achieved certain valid pages,
but these pages cannot save me,
perhaps because the good no longer belongs to anyone,
not even to the other,
but to language or tradition.
Furthermore,
I am destined to be lost,
definitively,
and only some instant of me may survive in the other.
Little by little I am yielding everything to him,
although I know his perverse habit of falsifying and magnifying.
Spinoza understood that all things desire to persevere in their being;
the stone eternally wishes to be stone and the tiger a tiger.
I shall remain in Borges, not in myself
(if I am someone),
but I recognize myself less in his books than in many others
or than in the laborious strumming of a guitar.
Some years ago I tried to rid myself of him
and passed from the mythologies of the suburb to games with time and with the infinite,
but those games now belong to Borges
and I will have to imagine other things.
Thus my life is an escape
and everything I lose and everything belongs to oblivion,
or to the other.
I do not know which of the two writes this page.Composer Notes
This is the English version of "Borges and I" — the original text, not an adaptation. Borges wrote it in Spanish; this version uses the English translation that has circulated for decades, with that strange fidelity that translations of Borges have, as though the original text already knew it would be translated and kept room for it. I asked for glitch rap, stuttered drum machine, jagged synths — the opposite of the essay's serenity. I wanted dissociation sonified.
Glitch as form makes sense here because "Borges and I" is a text about sync failure — about the self that lives and the name that publishes operating in parallel, never synchronized. The stutter of glitch rap is literally that: a signal that doesn't resolve, that repeats without arriving, that displays its own breakage. "I do not know which of the two writes this page" over that fragmented beat stops being a literary paradox and becomes technical description.
There is a register difference between this and the > be me greentext versions of the same text. The greentext versions have humor, distance, meme irony. This English version on glitch rap came out harder — less amused by the situation, more exposed. Perhaps it's the English language, which in this context feels less intimately mine than Portuguese, thereby stripping away my usual rhetorical protections. Or perhaps the glitch beat simply does not tolerate irony in the same manner. Ultimately, the four versions gathered here illuminate the same structural failure from different angles, completing each other without mere repetition, which was precisely the intended experiment.