Speaker 1: Pushkin. When SG Goodman released her debut album, Old Time
Speaker 1: Feeling in twenty twenty, critics hailed it as a stunning
Speaker 1: introduction to a bold new voice in Americana. Co Produced
Speaker 1: with Jim James of My Morning Jacket, the album showcased
Speaker 1: Goodman's ability to balance classic Southern sounds with progressive ideas,
Speaker 1: earning widespread acclaim and landing on numerous year end best
Speaker 1: of lists. SG was raised in Hickman, Kentucky, and a
Speaker 1: family of roe crop farmers and storytellers. That upbringing shaped
Speaker 1: her worldview and her songwriting. She sings about small town
Speaker 1: living with both deep affection and clear eyed critique. Now,
Speaker 1: with her third album, Planting by the Signs, Goodman continues
Speaker 1: to mind rich themes like love, loss, and reconciliation. The
Speaker 1: record is inspired in part by the ancient tradition of
Speaker 1: farming according to the cycles of the Moon, a practice
Speaker 1: passed down through generations in her family. On today's episode,
Speaker 1: Bruce Helen talks to SG Goodman about growing up in
Speaker 1: a family of storytellers and how that tradition makes its
Speaker 1: way into her songwriting. She also discusses co producing her
Speaker 1: latest album and how she was able to make a bigger,
Speaker 1: more atmospheric sounding record, and she performs a song I'm
Speaker 1: in Love Live. This is broken record, real musicians, real conversations.
Speaker 1: Here's Bruce Headlam with SG Goodman.
Speaker 2: Tell me about planting by the signs.
Speaker 3: Well, Planting by the Signs, which is the title of
Speaker 3: my album, is an ancient belief system, and in fact,
Speaker 3: a lot of people. I guess there's been a lot
Speaker 3: of different cultures that have looked to the moon and
Speaker 3: the stars for guidance and planting by the signs, and
Speaker 3: I guess a simple way to put it is when
Speaker 3: people noticed that the moon affected water and everything that
Speaker 3: was made of water would probably be affected by the moon.
Speaker 2: Was this an idea you grew up with your dad
Speaker 2: was a farmer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I kind of learned about this concept just over
Speaker 3: the kitchen table old people in my community. And it
Speaker 3: wasn't necessarily something that they pointed out that we believed in.
Speaker 3: But for instance, I was weaned for my mother by
Speaker 3: the signs. My brother cuts his hair by the signs.
Speaker 3: I remember, you know, my grandmother saying things like the
Speaker 3: signs are in the head, you'll if you pull a
Speaker 3: tooth threat in you're gonna bleed more these types of things,
Speaker 3: but in current day, because you know, I guess my
Speaker 3: lineage of knowing this belief system would have came through
Speaker 3: like probably Celtic, Irish ancestors, German whatever passed through the
Speaker 3: Appalachi Mountains settled in the South, and these are things
Speaker 3: that they still believed. But this was just kind of
Speaker 3: a common practice and still people use this to this
Speaker 3: day to plant and to do certain things.
Speaker 2: What resonated for you when you were thinking of this
Speaker 2: album and the song.
Speaker 3: Well, I have five little nieces and a nephew, pretty young,
Speaker 3: and I guess there's probably this moment for everybody when
Speaker 3: you realize that you are going to be the one
Speaker 3: who's now the storyteller of the family. I remember my
Speaker 3: aunts and uncles and older people in my community telling
Speaker 3: stories and kind of giving me a context of things.
Speaker 3: And yeah, that was just kind of a little bit
Speaker 3: of burden that I felt to do to make sure
Speaker 3: that my art reflected something and more substantial than me
Speaker 3: just writing like a heartbreak song. You know, I mean,
Speaker 3: if people were looking back at music in this current moment,
Speaker 3: we could find a lot of heartbreak songs. But can
Speaker 3: we find songs that help us, you know, hold onto
Speaker 3: our history and kind of point to how our belief
Speaker 3: systems have always changed over time. Maybe that would help
Speaker 3: somewhere down the road.
Speaker 2: Are there songwriters who do that for you?
Speaker 3: Well, I would say that there are archivists that have
Speaker 3: done that for me, you know. I think of like
Speaker 3: Alan Lomax, and I think of how I've really enjoyed
Speaker 3: listening to old field recordings and people who've gone into
Speaker 3: different parts of the world and set up a little
Speaker 3: tape recorder and have captured something, especially when it comes
Speaker 3: to old traditional folk tunes and melodies and things. You
Speaker 3: can see we're connected across history, especially when it comes
Speaker 3: to musical traditions for sure.
Speaker 2: And that's also a sound, that field recording sound. That's
Speaker 2: something that finds its way into your albums. It finds
Speaker 2: its way into this album, I think, yeah.
Speaker 3: You know, I guess a better way to put what
Speaker 3: made me want to write this album is I was
Speaker 3: really interested in how stories are passed down, and one
Speaker 3: thing that was important to me while making the album
Speaker 3: was to represent a lot of different ways stories are
Speaker 3: passed down. So that's one reason I included some field
Speaker 3: recordings and the actual album. That's the reason I included
Speaker 3: tattoos as my artwork that showcased, you know, little images
Speaker 3: that show up in the album. Tattoos are a way
Speaker 3: that we actually put stories on our own bodies. You know.
Speaker 2: Were there great storytellers in your family?
Speaker 3: Oh? Absolutely?
Speaker 2: Who are the great storytellers?
Speaker 3: My favorite storytellers would be my aunt Sally, And you know,
Speaker 3: I think Southerners sometimes they have their little signature thing
Speaker 3: that they say. I would say that if people who
Speaker 3: are close to me, I tend to go, well, Comma
Speaker 3: and then go into it. Well. My aunt Sally, her
Speaker 3: husband my uncle is named Walter, and the way she
Speaker 3: always starts a story is, well, I laughed and told
Speaker 3: Walter and whatever it is, and so she always says that,
Speaker 3: and that's, you know, it's something I'll never forget. But
Speaker 3: it's the it's really kind of the cadence and the
Speaker 3: flow of a story that I think is you know,
Speaker 3: one of the most special things about a Southern story
Speaker 3: because they're going to be long, they're going to be winding,
Speaker 3: and it's an art form for sure. But yeah, I
Speaker 3: was raised with best I'd say I was raised with
Speaker 3: the best storytellers.
Speaker 2: Are you very conscious of that. When you sit down
Speaker 2: to write, are you thinking of telling stories in a
Speaker 2: certain way.
Speaker 3: I feel like it's something that comes kind of natural
Speaker 3: to me, and also I'm a little bit sometimes too
Speaker 3: aware of it and self conscious of it. So, for instance,
Speaker 3: in this album, my song's Snapping Turtle, it is a
Speaker 3: real stream of consciousness, but it is a story and
Speaker 3: they do connect. But it is a very Southern story
Speaker 3: because I go from talking about kids in a Snapping
Speaker 3: Turtle too all of a sudden, we're not hearing about
Speaker 3: a snapping turtle anymore for quite a while, and that's
Speaker 3: kind of a Southern story. And then at the very
Speaker 3: end you wrap it together and it all makes sense,
Speaker 3: and you might have sat on somebody's porch for an
Speaker 3: hour and a half, but you know it's a whole
Speaker 3: cohesive story, but it might take you a minute to
Speaker 3: get there. So I did find myself really leaning into
Speaker 3: Southern storytelling in this album on several songs.
Speaker 2: These are character driven stories often, and the character in
Speaker 2: Snapping Turtle is whether there's the narrator and there's Leanne.
Speaker 2: So when you were writing that, were you writing the
Speaker 2: Leanne part and then the Snapping Turtle which is almost
Speaker 2: an image that starts it. Yeah, how do you put
Speaker 2: those things together in your mind?
Speaker 3: Well, actually, the line I guess that started the song
Speaker 3: Snapping Turtle was something that I actually heard when I
Speaker 3: was maybe twelve or thirteen, where a girl that I
Speaker 3: grew up with actually came to school after we were
Speaker 3: back from summer to tell us, you know, our friend group,
Speaker 3: that she had spent the whole summer in Paris, which
Speaker 3: was Paris, Tennessee, and it was just like a little
Speaker 3: Paris that had an Eiffel Tower and everything. But I
Speaker 3: remember being in college several years later, I was in
Speaker 3: a little short story writing class and that image came
Speaker 3: up to me, and I thought it was really an
Speaker 3: interesting way to think about worldview, maybe economic status, opportunity, fate,
Speaker 3: all these things, just in the fact that what's really
Speaker 3: sad is that my friend back in grade school to
Speaker 3: this day I know, really doesn't know the difference of Paris,
Speaker 3: France and Paris, Tennessee. And it's not coming from a
Speaker 3: judgmental place. It's just saying something really true about where
Speaker 3: I come from and about how I have been trying
Speaker 3: to process us how different people are growing up right
Speaker 3: beside you and have been handed very different hands than others.
Speaker 3: So that line started that many years ago and reappeared
Speaker 3: here in this song. And the snapping turtle line that
Speaker 3: was also a lived experience from childhood.
Speaker 2: When does that snapping turtle? When does that happen? What's
Speaker 2: the realization that you can put those together?
Speaker 3: I think really the moment when I realized that the
Speaker 3: snapping turtle was lee Anne was when I realized the
Speaker 3: protagonist or you know, the narrators I guess purpose in
Speaker 3: that song, which was that they were they were playing
Speaker 3: God when I say, when I raised my hand, I
Speaker 3: brought down the wrath of God himself. You know, I'm
Speaker 3: I'm really really intrigued with, you know, religion, free will,
Speaker 3: but mostly predestination. If I was honest with myself, I
Speaker 3: wasn't a philosophy major because I was going to take
Speaker 3: the LSATs and be a lawyer. I think I was
Speaker 3: obsessed with the question of predestination, and I took every
Speaker 3: course I could to understand more about this because it
Speaker 3: was a really important question for me in the context
Speaker 3: of how I was raised. I was raised Southern Baptist,
Speaker 3: I wasn't raised a Calvinist necessarily, but I was intrigued
Speaker 3: by it. I've always been really weird into doctrine and
Speaker 3: things like that. So the idea that an all knowing
Speaker 3: God would know someone's fate and is said to be
Speaker 3: the creator that has to bother you when you see
Speaker 3: things that don't seem fair.
Speaker 2: There is a line in that song small Towns where
Speaker 2: my mind gets stuck. You grew up in a small town.
Speaker 2: You very much identify still with that town. Tell me
Speaker 2: about that line in the context of your growing up.
Speaker 3: You know, especially around how I moved from talking about
Speaker 3: the snapping turtle to going into le end. The way
Speaker 3: this song kind of folded for me really started when
Speaker 3: I started therapy. A line that didn't make it in
Speaker 3: this song was don't look at me when I'm crying.
Speaker 3: I had this chorus and actual chorus that was in
Speaker 3: this song, and I didn't I scrapped it. But when
Speaker 3: I first started therapy, I wasn't raised in an emotional family.
Speaker 3: You know, we didn't cry. I've gotten a little bit
Speaker 3: better at crying publicly in the last maybe like four
Speaker 3: years of my life. But I remember being in this
Speaker 3: therapy session and she something came, but she had me
Speaker 3: do this thing eft this tapping stuff, and I just
Speaker 3: started crying, and I was so unbelievably embarrassed, and of
Speaker 3: course because instead of allowing myself to be vulnerable, I
Speaker 3: just got angry and I was yelling at this therapist
Speaker 3: and saying like, don't look at me right now, like
Speaker 3: why are you staring at me when I'm doing this?
Speaker 3: And that led me kind of to write this entire
Speaker 3: song because I look at this song as a looking
Speaker 3: back and processing the past and context of my life
Speaker 3: growing up.
Speaker 2: Was the church your first exposure to music?
Speaker 3: Definitely, yeah, I would say the church was was where
Speaker 3: I went to three concerts a week. But there was
Speaker 3: also even though not everyone in my family was musical,
Speaker 3: I think it was a very commonplace that every house
Speaker 3: had a piano and someone in the family could play.
Speaker 3: And I do remember, you know, my aunt Sally could play,
Speaker 3: my brothers could play different ones. And I remember very
Speaker 3: as I was a really small child when my dad
Speaker 3: and his brothers still farm together. They had a fish
Speaker 3: fry at our at our family farm shop and had
Speaker 3: a string band there and that was probably I was,
Speaker 3: you know, three four years old at that time, so
Speaker 3: I've been around it. But church is probably the biggest
Speaker 3: musical influence.
Speaker 2: Now, when you say there were concerts at church, were
Speaker 2: these secular music concerts or were these old you?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: I just make a joke because I get asked a
Speaker 3: lot of time, like what was your first concert? And
Speaker 3: I said, well, I went to three a week. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: oh no, there was never secular music. There wasn't even
Speaker 3: you weren't allowed to have. I didn't grow up in
Speaker 3: a church where you had like a drum set or
Speaker 3: there was nothing like that. They believed that anything passed
Speaker 3: may in organ You might have been carried away by
Speaker 3: the energy, and we wanted to stay focused.
Speaker 2: Okay, when when were you first carried away by the energy?
Speaker 2: What music did you hear that made you think this
Speaker 2: is something I want to do.
Speaker 3: My dad was a big music lover, he still is,
Speaker 3: and being in such a rural area, we spent a
Speaker 3: lot of time in the truck and tractor cabs and
Speaker 3: all that. He loves Super Tramp. You know that song
Speaker 3: take the Long Way Home? Sure, Okay, the harmonica. I
Speaker 3: just remember my dad just cranking that up in his
Speaker 3: old Chevy. So I guess what people are. What I've
Speaker 3: thought of is like classic rock. My dad was really
Speaker 3: into that, and I had a neighbor who was really
Speaker 3: into old country. This one of our landowners wives that
Speaker 3: we took care of as she aged. But she would
Speaker 3: get on her piano and play old Hank Williams and
Speaker 3: Lefty Frizell and different different songs like that for me.
Speaker 3: And that's how I was introduced to old country.
Speaker 2: And did you like it?
Speaker 3: Oh? I loved it. And I remember finding Miss Betty
Speaker 3: was this lady's name, and my job. Since I think
Speaker 3: I was probably about ten years old, I started cleaning
Speaker 3: her house and she lived right across the street from
Speaker 3: my parents. Miss Betty couldn't sing, God bless her. But
Speaker 3: when she'd sit down at that piano and start singing,
Speaker 3: you know, I was walking after midnight, you know, it
Speaker 3: was nice. I loved the song, but Miss Betty couldn't sing.
Speaker 3: So when I found a little CD of some old
Speaker 3: country classics at Walmart, I could not wait to take
Speaker 3: my little CD player over there for Miss Betty. And
Speaker 3: she enjoyed it, and I enjoyed our time a lot
Speaker 3: better too.
Speaker 2: You know, we'll be.
Speaker 1: Back with more from SG Goodman after the break.
Speaker 2: There are some Kentucky writers that right. Character songs. I
Speaker 2: thought of them when I was listening to her out
Speaker 2: like Tom t Hall oh yeah, and Keith Whitley, Who's
Speaker 2: and a little Loretta Lynn. I have to say, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: she's got strong characters in her song. It's usually the narrator.
Speaker 2: Were they influences on.
Speaker 3: You, I mean, of course I would imagine that. I
Speaker 3: deeply appreciate what they do. Yeah, I think when it
Speaker 3: comes to character development, I have to give tribute to
Speaker 3: my writing mentor. His name's del Ray Phillips. He was
Speaker 3: a short story writer Pulitzerprise nominee actually, and I was
Speaker 3: lucky enough to study under him in college and then
Speaker 3: we've remained very good friends. You know. He's the one
Speaker 3: who taught me to really respect your characters. In fact,
Speaker 3: I remember he was a big smoker up until recently. Actually,
Speaker 3: our college ram was on the first floor of this building,
Speaker 3: and he'd go outside and teach us through the window
Speaker 3: while he Jane smoke, okay, And I remember him yelling
Speaker 3: through the window one day that we were not good
Speaker 3: enough writers to kill our characters, and that he better
Speaker 3: not have any papers turned in where somebody killed off somebody.
Speaker 3: He said, you got to earn that wow. And he
Speaker 3: also said something to me that made me think about
Speaker 3: characters differently. He said, when you die, like nobody's going
Speaker 3: to remember your name, but they might remember your characters,
Speaker 3: and that's how people actually live.
Speaker 2: On tell me about the song, Michael told me, it's.
Speaker 3: A special song for me. I lost a kind of
Speaker 3: a father figure called himurried dad, Mike, and he was
Speaker 3: super special to me. And this song actually kind of
Speaker 3: revolves around his death. But who I'm speaking to in
Speaker 3: this song is not my it's actually a close friend
Speaker 3: of mine bandmate, actually co produced this record, someone who
Speaker 3: I've collaborated with for you know, thirteen fourteen years now.
Speaker 3: But at the time that Mike passed away, we were
Speaker 3: about on our second year of not speaking with each other.
Speaker 3: We weren't on speaking terms. We had a little falling out,
Speaker 3: and that wasn't our first falling out. We've gone a
Speaker 3: year without speaking prior to that. So maybe in another
Speaker 3: like five years, will you know, something might happen. We'll
Speaker 3: do that. But it's because he's a chosen brother. Sometimes
Speaker 3: siblings fight and we were just in our moment in
Speaker 3: that time. But when Mike passed away, we reached out
Speaker 3: to each other. And I think sometimes death gives you
Speaker 3: a good reason to put your bullshit aside and say
Speaker 3: I love you and I'm glad we're here together. And
Speaker 3: now look what's happened. You know, the song is on
Speaker 3: the record. Matt was kind enough and wanted to collaborate
Speaker 3: with me again, and I believe in his gifts so much.
Speaker 3: I as going to be a co producer and it's
Speaker 3: been a really great way to reconcile. And now we
Speaker 3: have this to show for it too.
Speaker 2: That's wonderful.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, I think when you're young, everybody thinks, gee, why
Speaker 2: the Beatles break up so soon? And then anytime you're
Speaker 2: in a creative endeavor with other people, you're like, how
Speaker 2: did they last so long?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I think there's something special. You know. A
Speaker 3: friend told me once, She's like, sometimes the only thing
Speaker 3: a person can imagine is having been wronged. Sometimes when
Speaker 3: you don't have the experience of of reconciling with people,
Speaker 3: you can't imagine what's on the other side. Like, it's
Speaker 3: it's safer to remain in hard feelings than it is
Speaker 3: to be vulnerable and imagine what it could be if
Speaker 3: you reconciled. Because sometimes you can't imagine what that would
Speaker 3: look like. That was a part of this album for sure.
Speaker 2: Now you write with him as well?
Speaker 3: Is that Yeah, we've written a few things. He ended
Speaker 3: up out. We were fighting, not in a bad way,
Speaker 3: but you know, we fight all the time. We're both
Speaker 3: really passionate people. But I had a song on the
Speaker 3: album Satellite. He was making suggestions for some the chord
Speaker 3: progression in that song, and I'm pretty hard headed, but
Speaker 3: Matt was right, so he helped me with the music
Speaker 3: on that one.
Speaker 2: Okay, what's your typical writing process? How do you write?
Speaker 3: I wish I knew, I really do. You know a
Speaker 3: few of the songs we've already talked about, they've come
Speaker 3: together over years, and what I've found works best for
Speaker 3: me is to always be willing to just keep notes,
Speaker 3: to not overthink. You know, I don't feel like you
Speaker 3: have to have a song written every day to be
Speaker 3: a songwriter. I don't write like that. Do I write
Speaker 3: every day? I would say I do, But what I
Speaker 3: consider writing every day might be just humming a little
Speaker 3: melody into a recorder or my phone, or writing down
Speaker 3: a word that I think is interesting. And I think
Speaker 3: that allows me to always be in a creative state,
Speaker 3: but as far as having a fully finished product, I
Speaker 3: don't write like that.
Speaker 2: Does there come a point where you've got a collection
Speaker 2: of images things you want to put together and you
Speaker 2: do have to sit down and work.
Speaker 3: It out well, like, for instance, with this album. I
Speaker 3: knew when I knew that I wanted to write about
Speaker 3: Planting by the Signs, and I knew that my goal
Speaker 3: was I didn't want to write a college dissertation. I
Speaker 3: wanted to write songs that have picked apart and looked
Speaker 3: at individually, could stand alone by themself. But I knew
Speaker 3: that I really wanted to try to write a cohesive
Speaker 3: song that would lead back to Planting by the Signs.
Speaker 3: So the way I dealt with that was I read
Speaker 3: everything I could get my hands on. I watched everything
Speaker 3: I could get my hands on, I could talk to
Speaker 3: everywhere I was. I was even well Jason isbel in
Speaker 3: Europe last fall. Late last fall, I was in Scotland
Speaker 3: and I asked the the coffee guys, like you happen
Speaker 3: to know anybody who's into moon planting or planting by
Speaker 3: the Signs around here? And he did, isn't that cool?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 3: So I went to this, yeah, this little nursery and
Speaker 3: asked around. I knew, even if I couldn't recall, you know,
Speaker 3: every single sign of the zodiac or whatever, if I've
Speaker 3: read enough and just entrenched myself in it, that it
Speaker 3: would come out in my writing. And it did, you know,
Speaker 3: it did, and it wasn't in a natural way. When
Speaker 3: it came time to actually write it, the details were there.
Speaker 2: You do have a song called fire Sign, which I did,
Speaker 2: seems to be the most explicit reference to that kind
Speaker 2: of thinking. How, for example, does it appear in Solitaire,
Speaker 2: which I is probably my favorite song on the album.
Speaker 3: Oh well, thank you?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 3: Have you ever noticed how a deck of cards has
Speaker 3: four suits? Right, there's four seasons. How many weeks are
Speaker 3: in a year. It's how many cards are in a deck.
Speaker 3: It's set up actually to mimic a calendar and your
Speaker 3: experience passing through a year. In order to live by
Speaker 3: the belief of planting by the signs, you have to
Speaker 3: be aware and be able to tell what could possibly
Speaker 3: happen in the future by looking at the past. And
Speaker 3: so so for me, that song is about seasons that
Speaker 3: have passed you. Now, that's the way I would make sense.
Speaker 2: Of it, and there's a beautiful line it's about betting
Speaker 2: against yourself and I don't remember the precise line. What
Speaker 2: is it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's Lords, You're gonna lose if you bet against yourself.
Speaker 3: Because the song starts out Solitaire is the only game
Speaker 3: where you don't need nobody's help. The Lord You're gonna
Speaker 3: lose if you bet against yourself? Right because the chorus,
Speaker 3: you know, back to actually Miss Betty and Hank, Hank
Speaker 3: Senior teaching me about, you know, some of the greats.
Speaker 3: He has this song lost on the River, and being
Speaker 3: that I was raised on learned how to you know,
Speaker 3: ski on the Mississippi River. I thought when Hank was
Speaker 3: talking about being lost on the river that he was
Speaker 3: talking about a physical river. Well, no, years later, when
Speaker 3: I learned how to play poker, which I'm terrible at,
Speaker 3: you know, I did. I was a second one stand
Speaker 3: in my first game, but apparently that's beginner's luck. But
Speaker 3: we were playing Texas Hold Them, and Hank SR. Was
Speaker 3: talking about the river in Texas Hold Them. So I
Speaker 3: went from talking about Solitaire to where, yes, you were
Speaker 3: a you're playing by yourself? Where the river I'm speaking of?
Speaker 3: And my song Solitaire is also It's Hank's River, It's
Speaker 3: It's the River in Texas. Hold Them where you Can
Speaker 3: Lose it all.
Speaker 2: So much of that song seems informed by church. M Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's I think as close as you get to
Speaker 2: a hymn on the album.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I could see that for sure.
Speaker 2: Were you conscious of that when you were writing?
Speaker 3: I think this is another example of how, you know
Speaker 3: how I just said that the images and details of
Speaker 3: planting by the signs would come if I just immersed
Speaker 3: myself in the material enough to where I didn't have
Speaker 3: to think about it. I think writing a melody like
Speaker 3: is that I did on Solitaire, it's just an example
Speaker 3: of how I've been immersed in that world, you know,
Speaker 3: from such a young age, where those old types of melodies,
Speaker 3: I'm never going to be able to separate myself from them.
Speaker 3: They've gone too deep. You know.
Speaker 2: There are I mentioned there are biblical illusions throughout the
Speaker 2: more so than in your other records. I think. You know,
Speaker 2: I saw the dabble and this incredible last song talk
Speaker 2: about that song.
Speaker 3: Heaven Song, Heaven Song. Well, you know, I think at
Speaker 3: the beginning of this we were talking about storytelling and that
Speaker 3: is a song where I really just gave myself full
Speaker 3: liberty to talk as long as I wanted. It's almost
Speaker 3: nine minutes long. And along with losing Mary Dad Mike.
Speaker 3: In fact, it was only two weeks before I lost Mike.
Speaker 3: I lost my dog of thirteen years, Howard, And then
Speaker 3: I was on tour and Mike was supposed to join
Speaker 3: us on tour in Austin. He's from Texas and wanted
Speaker 3: to go to that show, but his lodging fell through.
Speaker 3: He didn't make it. We were out in southern California. Oddly,
Speaker 3: I ran into ice on the Laguna Mountains. Scared the
Speaker 3: shit out of me. I've never lived in a place
Speaker 3: where you had to chain your tires, and there I
Speaker 3: was in a you know, twelve passenger van with gear
Speaker 3: and my band, and we had nothing but mountains in
Speaker 3: front of us. You know. I had to go all
Speaker 3: the way up into Seattle and down Utah and Colorado
Speaker 3: by the end of the tour. So I called Mike
Speaker 3: and asked him if he had any experience with chains
Speaker 3: on the tires, and we talked a bit on the phone.
Speaker 3: This was after I played Austin and played La and
Speaker 3: on the way to San Francisco from La Is when
Speaker 3: I got the call that Mike had had passed. That
Speaker 3: was my first tour of the year.
Speaker 2: And this was unexpected.
Speaker 3: This was unexpected. He died in a tree accident. And
Speaker 3: let me tell you, Mike was crazy and he would
Speaker 3: have wanted to die that. There was only one other
Speaker 3: way I can think he would have wanted to die,
Speaker 3: which was just get eat by a shark. He liked
Speaker 3: to surf. This was nuts. He got crushed in a tree. Okay,
Speaker 3: and Mike wouldn't mind me telling you this. In fact,
Speaker 3: it's pretty badass. He got crushed in a tree. And
Speaker 3: this is the most Mike thing ever. But his partner, Terrez,
Speaker 3: was trying to make her way out to where he
Speaker 3: was to help load this wood he was cutting, and
Speaker 3: as Mike was dying, he answered his phone to tell
Speaker 3: his partner of twenty years that he was dying.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's amazing. If you knew him, you
Speaker 3: would be like, well, isn't that Mike Harmon? You know,
Speaker 3: of course he would, And you know, you can giggle
Speaker 3: at it now because it's just so him. That was
Speaker 3: the beginning of twenty and twenty three. I had an
Speaker 3: insane touring year. That year, I never got to stop.
Speaker 3: When I started writing Heaven Song, I was heading out
Speaker 3: on tour with Margo Price right after that. That was,
Speaker 3: I believe late August. At that point, that was the
Speaker 3: first time I got to catch a breath. Really, that
Speaker 3: whole year, I hadn't been able to process Mike's death
Speaker 3: or my dog. And I finally had a moment by
Speaker 3: myself at home. So I took some little mushrooms that
Speaker 3: Mike had given me and had like a very mellow
Speaker 3: moment on my back porch, and I remember just right
Speaker 3: down the words and singing the melody to maybe if
Speaker 3: I see it, then I want it, because of course,
Speaker 3: when people close to you die, when a little creature
Speaker 3: who's been in your house for thirteen years is no
Speaker 3: longer there, you're thinking about mortality. You're thinking about, you know,
Speaker 3: life after death, all these things. And I really was,
Speaker 3: and I wanted to. I was hoping to do some
Speaker 3: processing around that when I was home, and I ended
Speaker 3: up writing this big old road trip where I mean,
Speaker 3: I know I'm the protagonist, and the song where I
Speaker 3: end up being in a car with all these man
Speaker 3: made concepts. The only thing really that was real was
Speaker 3: the dog, you know, and we're on a road trip
Speaker 3: to heaven. I knew I wanted to end the song.
Speaker 3: It took a long time. It took about another full
Speaker 3: year from that moment before I got the line, but
Speaker 3: I knew at the end of the song, you know,
Speaker 3: the chorus is maybe if I see it, then I
Speaker 3: want it. And I'm talking about heaven even though I'm
Speaker 3: trying to get there, but I'm still not sure if
Speaker 3: I'll even want to give it a go. But then
Speaker 3: at the end of the song, Sin, who has also
Speaker 3: been in the car with me this whole time, you know,
Speaker 3: wouldn't let me go into heaven before I answered what
Speaker 3: I had learned from Sin specifically, and my reply was
Speaker 3: that maybe if I see it, then I want it,
Speaker 3: which is kind of what you know, if you were
Speaker 3: raised in kind of the Christian tradition, That's what sin does, right.
Speaker 3: It makes you lust after things?
Speaker 4: Are you?
Speaker 2: Are you patient with yourself when there's something not working
Speaker 2: on a song? Will you try and force something in
Speaker 2: or you'll just you'll let it sit.
Speaker 3: No, And that's another thing I learned from my writing mentor.
Speaker 3: He would always say, like a story, you'll go about
Speaker 3: its business, and I look at songs the same way.
Speaker 3: You know, there's songs that have taken years to write
Speaker 3: and the way I believe it. I do write everything down,
Speaker 3: but I'm not scared to put a song away because
Speaker 3: I have this idea that if it comes back, then
Speaker 3: it's meant to and if it doesn't, then it wasn't.
Speaker 3: I really am not precious about that. I don't think
Speaker 3: I've thrown away my best ideas or something like that.
Speaker 3: I think if they're meant to stick around, they will.
Speaker 2: And you believe in predestination for songs.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, let's bring it back full circle here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's break and we'll be back with SG Goodman.
Speaker 2: Are you writing for other people as well?
Speaker 3: I would love to. You can tell you something. This
Speaker 3: is funny. I have a really bad tendency. What I'll do,
Speaker 3: I'll get it. I'll get a wild hair one night
Speaker 3: and write somebody and say let's get together, let's write.
Speaker 3: You know. I'm more of a phone call kind of person,
Speaker 3: or it doesn't stick in my brain. So what I've
Speaker 3: tried to do now is keep a list and then
Speaker 3: share it with my management to say, hey, I want
Speaker 3: you to know I wrote so and so, and they
Speaker 3: said they were willing to write with me, but I
Speaker 3: haven't followed up. And I have a feeling, if you know,
Speaker 3: I go on a walk after I hang up this phone,
Speaker 3: that it'll be another two weeks before I remember that
Speaker 3: I did that again. You know, I love my manager
Speaker 3: and thank God that you know they are willing to
Speaker 3: help me do that. But yeah, I love to co
Speaker 3: write with people. I don't have a lot of time
Speaker 3: for it, but I wish I did.
Speaker 2: You know, Because I was listening to this record, I thought, well,
Speaker 2: who wouldn't want some of these songs on their record too?
Speaker 2: They just seem to work that so well.
Speaker 3: Let's name some people that we would want to cover
Speaker 3: these songs. What are you thinking? Like Dolly Parton, let's
Speaker 3: willing into existence?
Speaker 2: But would I would? I want you to make as
Speaker 2: much money as possible.
Speaker 3: I would have wanted you have to follow me on substack.
Speaker 2: No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm eight dollars a month.
Speaker 2: You know I would have said, honestly, I would have
Speaker 2: said Mary unfaithful because I thought she covered songs so beautifully.
Speaker 3: You know, covering songs is one of it's truly an
Speaker 3: art form. I can't do it. I'm not very good
Speaker 3: at it.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 3: Yes, I was in the studio with a friend of mine,
Speaker 3: Kelsey Walden, who's a great, great artist man. She really
Speaker 3: has an act for reworking someone else's songs. I just
Speaker 3: have absolutely I go blank. I've been really fortunate in
Speaker 3: the covering song department. Tyler Childers covered sure one of
Speaker 3: my songs, and it really is a rare thing where
Speaker 3: you're like, you know what, You're a really good person,
Speaker 3: and I'd be happy for you to cover my song.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't have to worry about Tyler doing
Speaker 3: something and me being scared to be associated with him.
Speaker 3: But you know, you never know about some of these others.
Speaker 3: I'm not trying to make assumptions, but I do read.
Speaker 2: So you do. Do you feel at all a part
Speaker 2: of that world? You know, you root yourself in western Kentucky,
Speaker 2: which is not Nashville. Uh huh? Do you feel a
Speaker 2: part of that kind of Nashville world?
Speaker 3: I would say I'm about two hours out, you know,
Speaker 3: because that's how far I am from Nashville. It's good.
Speaker 3: Nashville has been good to me, and I don't have
Speaker 3: things to say about it. Negatively in that regards. But
Speaker 3: it's not a bad thing to be from Kentucky and
Speaker 3: be a musician. I think Kentucky music stands on it's
Speaker 3: own it and it has for a really long time
Speaker 3: and will continue to. So yeah, I'm about two hours
Speaker 3: out of Nashville.
Speaker 2: Everly Brothers, Ricky Skaggs, Bill Monroe.
Speaker 3: Kentucky isn't even just like a country music hub. I
Speaker 3: mean when I opened my mouth, I'm country, you know,
Speaker 3: but I love punk music, I love rap, I love
Speaker 3: all kinds of different music. And Kentucky has a really
Speaker 3: big history of you know, we have Bonnie Prince, Billy,
Speaker 3: we have we have Slint, an old post punk band,
Speaker 3: My Morning Jacket, you know, State Champion was a big
Speaker 3: influence on me. The span at A Louisville. It's great
Speaker 3: indie band Wombo. There's lots of different types of really
Speaker 3: amazing music that has come out of Kentucky.
Speaker 2: And well, Jim James from My Morning Jacket produced your
Speaker 2: first rect Did he discover.
Speaker 3: You in a sense or I think I was forced
Speaker 3: on him? Not really.
Speaker 2: I had a bit of worked out.
Speaker 3: It did well, I asked a mutual friend of mine,
Speaker 3: I got the nerves I went and worked on some demos,
Speaker 3: and then six months later I finally got the nerve
Speaker 3: to send them to a mutual friend of ours, this
Speaker 3: artist named Daniel Martin Moore. I was up in the
Speaker 3: mountains with him and Joan Shelley and a bunch of
Speaker 3: different writers for this compilation called the Pine Mountain Sessions,
Speaker 3: and I saw that Jim James was on it, and
Speaker 3: I was like, oh my goodness, because I was a
Speaker 3: really big fan of my morn Jacket and I was like, wow,
Speaker 3: I guess I'm not crazy far removed from this person.
Speaker 3: And I knew Daniel's friends, and after I got those
Speaker 3: demos together, I sent Daniel an email in October of
Speaker 3: that year, and by December, my friend and now publicist
Speaker 3: actually told me we haven't heard back from Jim. It's
Speaker 3: a good record. You should if you don't hear back
Speaker 3: by Monday, like you should move on and like just
Speaker 3: cut the record go on. Well, I was working and
Speaker 3: I was actually living in Nashville. I lived in Nashville
Speaker 3: for about six months and was working at a little
Speaker 3: taco shop there. It was right before my serving shift.
Speaker 3: I'd been there prepping since seven. I was having a
Speaker 3: coke outside and I got an email looping me in
Speaker 3: that Monday with Jim James.
Speaker 2: Did you do your shift?
Speaker 3: I did it a lot happier that day than all
Speaker 3: the other ones.
Speaker 2: You know, everybody got a little EPI.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I was like, I'm not gonna be here
Speaker 3: much longer. I'm going back to Kentucky. I had my
Speaker 3: house in Kentucky and live there to help pay off
Speaker 3: my property taxes that year.
Speaker 2: Now that sound had it does have that low fi sound,
Speaker 2: a lot of reverb on the guitar. You still some
Speaker 2: of that, but this, this album feels the sound feels different.
Speaker 2: Did you go in with different ideas for how you
Speaker 2: wanted the production to go.
Speaker 3: I did. I wanted not only did I want the production,
Speaker 3: as far as the sound to feel different. I wanted
Speaker 3: to make it no that I was going to be
Speaker 3: a third whill as the producer. I've always co produced
Speaker 3: all my records, and you know I have a very
Speaker 3: particular vision, and you could verify that with anyone who's
Speaker 3: ever done anything with me. I had worked with Drew
Speaker 3: Vandenberg and I've worked with Matt Rowan before on other projects,
Speaker 3: but never where it was as blatant as all right,
Speaker 3: we're going to be all co captains on this, and
Speaker 3: I am going to be more open to your ideas
Speaker 3: and things like that. So that was different and vulnerable feeling.
Speaker 3: But as far as yes, making a bigger sounding record
Speaker 3: than I had in the past, that I went into
Speaker 3: the studio know when I wanted to do that, and
Speaker 3: I hired musicians specifically to help accomplish that.
Speaker 2: For me, do you know enough about production? I think
Speaker 2: there's things I can do here to make this feel bigger.
Speaker 3: Oh definitely. This is the first record where I ever
Speaker 3: let keys and kind of anything that wasn't easily packed
Speaker 3: into my van and could go across this country on
Speaker 3: a record. I always had a problem with that. I
Speaker 3: always have been really particular about wanting for my live
Speaker 3: performance to sound just like the record. A lot of
Speaker 3: people aren't like that, you know, and a lot of
Speaker 3: listeners don't want that. But for me, being starting out
Speaker 3: in music and trying to cut my teeth and pretty
Speaker 3: much anyone I would come in front of had never
Speaker 3: heard me before, I wanted my live show to sound
Speaker 3: exactly like the record. So I was representing what I
Speaker 3: had done. And having a keyboard player early on in
Speaker 3: my tour life. That just couldn't have happened. I couldn't
Speaker 3: have fit everybody in the van, and I couldn't afford
Speaker 3: to pay an extra person. Even this record, I knew
Speaker 3: that I wanted to add another sonic element that was
Speaker 3: not present on albums in the past, and I chose,
Speaker 3: you know, kind of auxiliary key stuff and I love it.
Speaker 3: I have had Ben Tanner plays with Alabama Shakes and
Speaker 3: was down in muscle shows. Lives down there so right
Speaker 3: by the studio and what a what a champ? Really
Speaker 3: good and I mean, I'm not gonna lie. It took.
Speaker 3: I was really uncomfortable with some of the ambient things
Speaker 3: that were coming out at first, but we honed it
Speaker 3: in in a way that I was comfortable and I
Speaker 3: never they Matt and Drew, my co producers, would always say,
Speaker 3: you are steering the ship of what and that's important.
Speaker 3: I have to have the music sound like something that
Speaker 3: I don't get up in front of people and feel
Speaker 3: like it's not me, you know. So that was that
Speaker 3: was fun. But Matt Penn was my drummer, and it
Speaker 3: was just like washing a person like just an alien.
Speaker 3: His drumming is just it was hard to play live
Speaker 3: with him because I just wanted to watch. It was
Speaker 3: really amazing, And yeah, I was really fortunate to get
Speaker 3: to work with a lot of really really great musicians
Speaker 3: on this record that made things. We just locked in
Speaker 3: with each other in the live room and we're out
Speaker 3: of there in ten days.
Speaker 2: Amazing. Well, it's a great record. Thank you so much
Speaker 2: for doing this. It's been just wonderful.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Yeah, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Do you want to play a song?
Speaker 3: Let's do it, all right, play something.
Speaker 2: You can play anything you want, all right.
Speaker 3: I'm going to play my song, I'm in Love, a
Speaker 3: sweet little song.
Speaker 4: All the early birds now singing like a late night
Speaker 4: talking for I've been trespassing on my neighbors, swimming naked
Speaker 4: through their pool. Well, I've forgotten all my friends, but
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 5: Know they can tell the Army love. I'm in love.
Speaker 5: I'm in love. I'm in love.
Speaker 4: I've been crying at commercials on the Hotel hotelevision set,
Speaker 4: and I've been lieing on my tex Is, crowding off
Speaker 4: the things that I ain't ballsed RSV. Petere and thetation
Speaker 4: snowing in my heart that I never show.
Speaker 6: That.
Speaker 5: Army Love. I'm in love.
Speaker 6: I'm in love. I'm in love. The moon is right
Speaker 6: now for cutting off hair.
Speaker 4: I'm checking out Walmart collections of underwear.
Speaker 6: I'm in love. I'm in love. I'm in love. I'm
Speaker 6: in love.
Speaker 4: Oh, have our conversation, said the checkout line at the
Speaker 4: grocery store, telling my whole life now to strangers in
Speaker 4: a way I've never done before. Yeah, I've been dancing
Speaker 4: in my kitchen, singing into school.
Speaker 6: There, arm in love, Armon Love, Armen Love, I'm in love, Yes,
Speaker 6: Armon Love, common Love, Armon Love, arm in.
Speaker 2: Beautiful, thank you.
Speaker 1: In an episode description, you'll find a link to our
Speaker 1: favorite Goodman tracks, as well as her latest album, Planting
Speaker 1: by the Signs. Be sure to check out YouTube dot
Speaker 1: com slash Broken Record podcast to see all of our
Speaker 1: video interviews, and be sure to follow us on Instagram
Speaker 1: at the Broken Record Pod. You can follow us on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited
Speaker 1: by Leah Rose, with marketing and help from Eric Sandler
Speaker 1: and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Holliday. Broken Record
Speaker 1: is production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show
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Speaker 1: us on your podcast app Our theme musics by Kenny Beats.
Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmond.