thejoshworld

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  • Bright Pastures (Studio Version)– Josh Montague

    In agriculture, it’s common for farmers to burn grasslands intentionally — a controlled fire that revitalizes the soil, making it more arable for future growth. Yet, that practice comes with risk. A wrong wind, a moment of miscalculation, and the blaze can consume trees, harm livestock, or even destroy the very grain that was meant to be nurtured.

    Bright Pastures takes that reality and flips it into a metaphor about human nature — how some people seem almost drawn to disrupting good things. Some do it without thought, others with deliberate intent. Like a fire started in fertile fields, their actions can spread, damaging not only what’s in front of them but everything connected to it.

    Interestingly, this track follows my recent release Ocean Meadows. While that song pondered the space we make (or deny) for others, Bright Pastures almost feels like its opposite — a burning meadow finding immediate peace only in its aftermath. I didn’t plan it that way, but the thematic connection revealed itself after the fact.

    Lyrics – Bright Pastures

    bright pastures
    people seem to burn

    bright pastures
    people seem to burn

    the arable, the land that fills
    people people seem to yearn

    the arable, the land that fills
    people people seem to yearn

    instrumental

    the pock, the flock, the driven nock
    people people seem to churn

    the pock, the flock, the driven nock
    people people seem to churn

    bright pastures
    people seem to burn

    bright pastures
    people seem to burn

    the butter wings flutter lings
    of fowl, fowl, smoke

    the butter wings flutter lings
    of fowl, fowl, fowl, fowl, fowl, smoke

    The song layers rustic imagery over a deeper commentary — a reminder that even in the most fertile, vibrant spaces, there’s always the risk of destruction from within.

    🎧 Listen now: Bright Pastures

    — Josh Montague

  • Ocean Meadows – Josh Montague (Studio Version) [feat. Neun]

    “Ocean Meadows” is one of those songs where the lyrics are deceptively simple, yet quietly loaded with meaning. The imagery itself is a contradiction—there are no meadows in the ocean. Is it satire? Is it a wishful imagining, as if meadows really could exist beneath the waves? Or is it simply a symbolic pairing meant to spark your own interpretation? That’s for you to decide.

    What is clear, however, is that there is a “space.” It’s a healthy reminder to make space for others—something the world so often refuses to do, whether in physical, emotional, or even digital realms like social media and YouTube. Sometimes, it’s not strangers who deny space, but family. To me, if anything, the song means that I would make space for you, even when others would not. Perhaps the strange pairing of “ocean” and “meadows” underscores the hypocrisy of the way the world can be—how people and systems refuse what should be basic rights.

    I’m reminded of the well-known story about the most prominent religious figure in history, Jesus—how there was no space for his birth at the inn, and he was instead delivered in a stable, placed in a manger. Not to come across as overly religious here, but simply as an analogy: even in a world that should have made room, there wasn’t, and yet a place was still made.

    And just as man came into the world nearly lacking space, so might one leave it the same way—the ocean itself making space for ashes carried off into it, as if the ocean of meadows bears a space like a grave.

    So whether “Ocean Meadows” makes you picture something real, impossible, or deeply personal, its simplicity holds room for your own meaning. That space is there—if you want it.

    —Josh Montague

    Lyrics:

    Like the meadows in the ocean
    like the meadows in the ocean

    there’s a space
    there’s a space

    Like the meadows in the ocean
    like the meadows in the ocean

    there’s a space
    for your name

    (Link to Studio Version)

    Socials:
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    X (Twitter) – @theJoshWorld

  • “Those Days” [Feat. LXV] – Josh Montague | Studio Versions Now Out

    The Fleeting Light of What Was

    I’m excited to share “Those Days”, my newest studio version release featuring LXV — a track that lives somewhere between nostalgia, fading memory, and quiet reflection. This version offers a more polished production than some of my previous, rawer works, but it still retains the minimalist emotion and tone I’ve come to rely on.

    It’s a song about change — the subtle, inevitable kind. The kind that doesn’t arrive with a warning but quietly replaces the familiarity of now with the distance of then. It’s about lawns once green, days once long, moments that no longer return. Even if you believe in restoration, in God, or in some divine order — the reality remains: life never repeats itself exactly. What we call “those days” can’t be relived. And maybe that’s why we hold them so dearly.

    This studio version brings those themes forward in a way that feels more final — but not without beauty.

    Lyrics – “Those Days”

    bright row  
    sun shade  
    sun rise  
    sun daze  
      
    days long  
    lawn gone  
    green cut  
    auds fawn  
      
    those days  
    those days  
    are gone  
    are gone  
      
    those days  
    those days  
    are gone  
    are gone  
      
    L's lost  
    snow blue  
    ice cold  
    might cue  
      
    long lost  
    rind spans  
    of F lawns  
    end lands  
      
    those days  
    those days  
    are gone  
    are gone

    This release joins a small but growing group of studio versions I’ve put out this week. If you’ve been following my work, you’ll know many of my earlier pieces were written and recorded with only a phone — improvised, raw, and as real as it gets. But these new versions bring clarity to the emotional undertones I’ve always tried to convey.

    Also check out my other recent studio versions –

    Youtube links:

    ▶️ Watch “Those Days” on YouTube: https://youtu.be/CMCs1J9f7wU

    Thank you for listening and supporting this little world I keep building.
    – Josh

    Socials:
    TheJoshWorld.com
    Twitter: @theJoshWorld
    TikTok: @theJoshWorldMe
    NFT Art: OpenSea – Josh Montague

  • Saturn’s Desert Hills of Airsand – Josh Montague (Instrumental)

    This guitar instrumental began with the artwork — not of a real desert, but one that could never exist. Saturn, a gas giant, has no solid surface… and certainly no sand. And yet, in the art piece I created alongside this instrumental, a soft mirage of dunes stretches under a Saturn-like sky — adrift to one like even our own, that shimmer with illusion.

    That’s the idea behind this song.

    We often rely on what feels familiar — dunes, hills, the illusion of ground. But Saturn reminds us that not all that appears solid truly is. The universe, like life, is full of shapes and symbols we think we understand… until we look closer.

    This track is about that illusion. About how even emptiness can appear inviting, how we sometimes chase the familiar instead of facing what’s real. Because like Saturn’s “airsand,” what looks grounded from afar may vanish when you try to stand on it.

    Thanks for listening,
    – Josh
    thejoshworld.com
    YouTube | X / Twitter | TikTok | NFTs

  • Haps of Icebergs, Mis — A Song Rooted in the Echoes of European History

    (Studio Version Link)

    The latest lyrical song I’ve released is titled “Haps of Icebergs, Mis” — an enigmatic track that alludes to the haunting complexity of Europe’s tangled past. In this piece, I wanted to explore, both subtly and starkly, the origins of disorder and empire: from the seemingly chaotic tribes of early Europe to the legacy of dynasties that shaped the modern world.

    When I first studied European history, I was fascinated by the Hapsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire. There was a mystique to it — something almost ghostlike. The HRE was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire in the traditional sense, and yet it held influence for centuries. Today, the name Hapsburg rings quietly, with very little trace left in modern mainstream discourse. And yet… how could they not have been central to the narratives that spiraled into World War I and II?

    The lyrics in this song start with an almost chant-like repetition:

    the manic tribes
    of jerrs and vibes
    of hay *(e) —–

    There’s something purposefully obscure in these lines. “Jerrs” and “vibes” reference not only sonic cues, but cultural reverberations — the manic undercurrent of Europe’s tribal past, particularly the Germanic tribes that, long before forming nation-states, roamed with warlike cadence. Those very tribes, from the Goths to the Vandals, were painted in historical texts as destroyers, often unfairly reduced to caricatures of chaos and destruction. And yet, were they not the foundations of the continent?

    oras of haze
    hours of the daze

    This portion bridges to something more psychological, more metaphysical. The “hay” becomes “haze”, and with that subtle vowel shift, we move from a scene of rustic simplicity to one of mental fog — “hours of daze”, or perhaps, days of daze. That confusion, that dazed haze of history, is what this song sits within.

    veux to veux
    of lieu to lieu to stay

    French listeners may recognize “veux” (want) and “lieu” (place), hinting at movement, longing, belonging — even a fragmented identity. I myself am predominantly British, though my bloodline traces back to Normandy, France around 800 AD, and still, there’s significant German descent woven in. In this way, the song becomes not just about nations and histories, but personal inheritance: where do we belong in the lines drawn by centuries before us?

    The song repeats again:

    the manic tribes
    of jerrs and vibes
    of hay *(e) —–

    And it’s worth noting — some lines were intentionally left out. Maybe one day I’ll share the missing stanzas. Maybe some of the meaning is best left for interpretation.

    Lastly, I want to touch on the title. Haps of Icebergs, Mis — a play on “Hapsburg” and “mishap” and the coldness of icebergs. The things we only see the tip of. What lies beneath?

    This piece is not a straightforward telling. It’s not a lesson, not even a clear narrative. But it is a meditation on history, identity, power, and perhaps the absurdity that comes from trying to find order in centuries of disorder.

    Thanks for listening. I suppose it isn’t the end. Not yet.

    — Josh Montague
    www.thejoshworld.com
    Youtube: @thejoshworldme
    Twitter/X: @thejoshworld
    TikTok: @thejoshworldme
    NFTs: opensea.io/joshmontague

  • Close, what? – Josh Montague

    (Studio Version link)

    Some songs emerge not with a bang, but with a kind of quiet finality — not loud, not sprawling, but still deeply felt.
    “Close, what?” might be that kind of song.

    At just around a minute and a half, this piece is ominous, minimal, and draped in questions. It offers a hint of closure without ever confirming it. It might be the final piece in this small collection of lyric-based recordings I’ve made. Or maybe not. It feels like it, though.

    The song unfolds in short, shadowy stanzas, with a sense that something — something important — is being sought, and maybe even found:

    There are times
    when we must go
    there to find

    There are times
    when we must go
    there to find

    when we get there
    we, we know, what
    we’re there to find

    the end

    It reads like a riddle — or an answer you didn’t know you were asking for.
    If there’s an epiphany buried in it, it may dawn gently — or not at all — depending on the listener.

    I’ve released nine lyrical songs in this raw, minimalistic style — recorded simply, with nothing but an iPhone, guitar, and my voice. Of those, five to eight may form a short project or album. I haven’t decided whether all nine will be included, or if I’ll revisit them one day in fuller, more studio-crafted versions.

    But this version is the original. The first draft. The unsanded edge.

    For now, Close, what? feels like a good place to stop — at least for a moment.
    If it is a closing, it’s not dramatic. It’s just… final.
    If it isn’t, it’s a doorway. One you didn’t know you passed through.

    Thanks for listening.

    — Josh Montague

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  • Between Light & Dark, Places – Josh Montague (New Short Song)

    (Studio Version Link)

    Sometimes life places us not in the aftermath, or even the beginning, but in the middle — in the unseen moment where things shift but haven’t settled. That’s where this new short song came from.

    “Between Light & Dark, Places” is only just over a minute long. It opens with a rhythm of soft, triadic guitar figures — a brief but steady pattern I built out of improvisation, something both calming and quietly unsettled. Then come the words. Sparse, but weighted.

    when the darkness fades
    and the sunlight shades
    it’s a blackness of
    none of it

    The lyrics repeat — like something unresolved. It’s meant to capture the emotional limbo we often find ourselves in. Not fully healed. Not fully broken. A passenger between the weight of cosmic forces — or, more realistically, the motivations and consequences of other people’s decisions. Their wars. Their actions. Their decisions, & the effect it has on us.

    Something In the Nothing

    Even in what feels like nothing, there is something. Maybe not a reason, maybe not a plan — but presence, even in shadow, absence. A whisper of weight in a moment of pause. That’s what I wanted this song to live in — the gray, the in-between, the places between light and dark.

    In a world increasingly dominated by noise and reaction, quiet reflection becomes an act of resistance. And this piece, small as it is, was my way of pushing back — even if only for a minute.

    Thanks for listening.

    — Josh

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  • ‘Non, e’ – Time, Space, and the Quiet Expansion of the Universe

    Some songs don’t offer answers — only questions with echoes.
    My new song, ‘Non, e‘ drifts in that kind of space.

    Built around a minimal progression and a vocal loop, this song leans into something mystic and slow-burning — a meditation on what remains present even in absence.

    The lyrics are simple:

    in the darkest days
    there’s time and space

    in the realm of none
    there’s nothing to be done
    nothing to say
    in time or space

    It circles these lines — not to resolve them, but to let them resonate. Because even on our darkest days, something still exists: time still ticks. Space still stretches. And in that, there’s both grief and possibility.

    Parallels with the Universe

    The song touches on something more cosmic — how the scaling nature of the universe feels eerily parallel to our emotional lives.

    The universe expands. It accelerates. Scientists still ask whether that expansion will go on forever, or whether one day it’ll hit a final wall — entropy exhausted — what I’ve jokingly called before: The Big Brick.

    Will there be something beyond that point?
    Or will it stretch endlessly toward a realm of none — of zero — where nothing more can be done or said?

    These are huge questions, yes, but this song doesn’t try to answer them. It just holds them quietly, like a sky on mute.

    A Space for the Listener

    ‘Non, e‘ isn’t loud. It doesn’t build to a drop or a resolution. It’s a slow shimmer. And sometimes that’s what’s most honest — music that gives you space to think, not just something to fill it.

    I hope this one speaks to you in its stillness.

    — Josh Montague
    thejoshworld.com

    (Click here to watch ‘Non,e’ on Youtube)

  • Ebb and Flow – On the Natural Decay of Things, and the Hope of Equilibrium

    (Link here for full Studio Version)

    I wrote Ebb and Flow several months ago — before this site even existed, before I had a dedicated space to reflect on what these pieces mean to me, or why I write them.

    I released the audio version of the song at that time, but until now it’s been missing something visual to anchor it — and I never wrote about the intentions behind it. So here it is.

    This piece focuses on something both personal and wide in scope: the decay of humanity — the kind that shows up in relationships, in society, and in ourselves. It’s satirical at times, a bit biting, but not without purpose. I wanted it to mirror the erosion of meaning and structure we often witness in our modern world, but with a kind of quiet formality.

    The title, Ebb and Flow, almost disguises the tone of the lyrics. It suggests balance — a wave rising and falling, like a measured breath. But much of the song is about imbalance: how we fall out of rhythm with each other, how we allow ourselves to crumble when we’re meant to build.

    Still, there’s a strange kind of beauty in acknowledging that. Naming the destruction and knowing it doesn’t have to define the whole story.

    Here are the lyrics:

    Ebb and Flow – Lyrics

    Lasting lighted horts of thee
    Arts to thee that tune
    Nigh forever go thy you’ll always stow
    In that raze of city spaze
    Where for all but so
    There you’ll sit and dine
    Wine and wine and whine

    Meager pasture parts of thee
    Nought but glime or calamity
    I’ll forever know, where you’ll ebb and flow
    Nor but gaze nor nor but shine
    Clods and fills the loom
    For you’ll always be, glucked and not to see

    The language here is purposefully odd — poetic, twisted, bent slightly out of joint. Because that’s what it’s about: a distorted reflection of life as it’s often lived, not as it’s meant to be. A -1 to 1, mathematically even, but emotionally at odds.

    This piece has always felt a little outside of time to me. I’m glad to finally give it a space on the site, with a visual to go alongside.

    Thanks for being here — for flowing along, even through the ebbs.

    — Josh Montague

    Click here to watch ‘Ebb and Flow’ on Youtube

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  • Walks of Camino Cliffs – An Instrumental Reflection

    This new short instrumental piece, Walks of Camino Cliffs, started — like many of mine — with just a name. I was playing around with the word “camino”, which in Spanish means “road” or “walk.” The name stood out because it felt active yet ancient, almost like a quiet echo from a path someone once took long ago.

    The phrase “walks of camino cliffs” isn’t traditional — it’s intentionally a bit skewed. But that’s part of how I work. The song came together improvisationally, and the cliffside visuals (you’ll notice a subtle mountain in the art) started to feel like they were guiding the music’s tone — soft, layered, and edged with quiet tension.

    A surprising connection to the Camino de Santiago

    Interestingly, only after sketching the sound and naming the piece did I realize the deeper tie to something real: the Camino de Santiago, or “Way of St. James,” a famous pilgrimage route through Spain. It’s a historical and spiritual walk that many have taken over the centuries — sometimes for religious reasons, sometimes just to reconnect with life.

    While I’m Christian Protestant, and the Camino is often associated with Catholic tradition, I’ve always appreciated the symbolism behind things like this — the idea of traveling for renewal, of walking roads walked long before you, and of cliffs as both borders and invitations.

    This song isn’t a literal soundtrack to that pilgrimage — but it’s drawn from the same kind of spirit: walking forward, slowly, with awareness. Finding paths through sound. Standing still at the edge of something old and open.

    If that speaks to you, or even just calms you for a moment, then I’m glad I shared it.

    — Josh Montague

    Watch ‘Walks of Camino Cliffs’ on Youtube.

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    Related: Ambulant Funnel Waves

    As I worked on this piece, it reminded me of another song of mine — Ambulant Funnel Waves — which also explores motion, shifting forces, and symbolic journeys. You can listen to that one here:

    👉 Watch “Ambulant Funnel Waves” on YouTube