Music is my way of understanding God: Colombian musician

Madrid: "Music is my way of understanding God," Colombian musician Juanes said, while denying any plans to retire from music and dedicate himself to politics.On May 25, the ex-agent of the Colombian singer-songwriter, Fernan Martinez, said that Juanes was going to retire for "three or four years", which would mean canceling at least 60 concerts around the world, and added that the artist was "depressed" and had "personal problems".

The singer replied that Fernan Martinez was no longer his agent and that he was only taking a month off to spend with his family. "Now more than ever I`m certain that my life is and will always be about music, along with my family. Nothing makes me happier than playing the guitar onstage and singing to my fans - it`s a blessing and what has always saved me," Juanes said recently in an e-mail to EFE. The singer, currently on a world tour, said that the new line-up of concerts is "beautiful, an audiovisual experience of feelings, very different to anything I`ve done before". "The repertoire," he said, "is the same as every year, songs that go from my first album up to the present, with a really high-powered band accompanying me." Juanes, who has no thought of recording in English, said that he still feels "very comfortable" with songs like "A Dios Le Pido" (I Ask God), because they belong to "a period and a way of looking at music and at life". "What`s more," he said, "they have a lot to do with my childhood and my beginnings in music. Every time I perform them in a concert, I shut my eyes and sing as if I were doing it for the first time in the living room at home when I was five years old." But he also confessed that he now feels "the need to produce and redirect" his music, and that concerts are "one of the best places for inspiring new things, new emotions, sadness, stories about life..." The creator of numbers like "La Camisa Blanca" (The White Shirt), "Volverte a Ver" (To See You Again), and "Me Enamora" (Making Me Love Her), said that "when I return to the studio, all I hear is the voice of my heart, sometimes tired and subdued, sometimes full of light and happiness". IANS