Kentucky singer/songwriter S.G. Goodman opens up about grief, legacy, and the traditional observe that impressed her breathtaking third album ‘Planting by the Indicators’ – a file of inheritance, survival, and the seek for that means. Talking with Atwood Journal, she displays on loss and accountability whereas taking us track-by-track by her most weak and visionary work up to now.
Stream: “Fireplace Signal” – S.G. Goodman
With every year and every funeral, I’m understanding the burden of my accountability in passing down tales and beliefs.
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Okayentucky’s personal S.G. Goodman doesn’t write albums a lot as she builds them from the marrow of lived expertise – fragile and unflinching, jagged and elegant.
Planting by the Indicators is her most cinematic, intimate, and devastatingly stunning file but: A panoramic journey by grief and survival, inheritance and accountability, and the everlasting tug-of-war between management and give up. Her third file aches inside and outside; Goodman’s lyrics are daring and unforgettable, her voice a vessel of uncooked humanity, wrapped in a heat, expansive soundscape that glows like firelight in an all-encompassing darkness.
Pushed by an unshakable ardour and solid within the fires of loss and grief, Planting by the Indicators is Goodman’s most weak and visionary album but – a resonant file of inheritance and survival, advised with piercing honesty and soul-stirring cinematic grace. It’s an album that burns gradual and regular till it consumes all the pieces in its path – together with our ears and our hearts alongside the way in which.
Launched June 20, 2025 through Slough Water Information / Thirty Tigers, Planting by the Indicators arrives because the extremely anticipated follow-up to 2022’s Tooth Marks and 2020’s Outdated Time Feeling. These albums made Goodman one among America’s most important singer/songwriters, incomes her crucial acclaim, an NPR Tiny Desk efficiency, and the Americana Awards’ “Finest Rising Artist” prize. She’s toured relentlessly with the likes of Jason Isbell, My Morning Jacket, and Margo Worth, whereas her instant-classic ballad “House and Time” has been lined by each Tyler Childers and Dev Hynes.
However the highway took its toll. Between the lack of her beloved canine Howard and the tragic dying of her buddy and mentor Mike Harmon, Goodman was pressured to reckon with mortality and reminiscence, absence and belonging.
“After writing and releasing my earlier albums, I felt an urgency to focus my consideration on a topic that once I’m gone, my nieces and nephew would be capable of hear our historical past,” she tells Atwood Journal. “With every year and every funeral, I’m understanding the burden of my accountability in passing down tales and beliefs.”
That urgency grew to become Planting by the Indicators, a file steeped within the historical observe of ‘planting by the indicators’ – the Appalachian folks perception that the cycles of the moon ought to information life’s rhythms, from gardening and haircuts to weaning kids.
“Planting by the indicators is an historical observe, the place it’s believed that as a result of the moon impacts water, that in sure phases of the moon, there are extra suited situations to do issues than others,” Goodman explains. “As a result of all dwelling issues encompass water, it’s believed that each one dwelling issues are affected by the moon. I used to be weaned from my Mom by the indicators. I grew up listening to issues about chopping your hair in accordance with the moon and planting gardens underneath sure phases of the moon.”
For Goodman, this was each private and common. “‘Planting By The Indicators’ isn’t one thing that’s distinctive to my household alone, or to any group of individuals,” she provides.
“I can hint a number of the practices again to my pagan Celtic ancestors, in addition to discuss the way it was adopted to suit the beliefs of my conservative Christian ancestors. That’s my specific story, however all historical civilizations first appeared to nature to information them. It’s our collective heritage and belongs to every of us.”
As with each Goodman file, the making of Planting by the Indicators was as transformative because the songs themselves. “Individuals who file typically discuss ‘studio magic,’” she says. “One of many tracks I actually felt this expertise was whereas monitoring ‘Planting by the Indicators,’ my title observe. My preliminary sonic strategy to that track was not a stripped-down folks track, however after monitoring it with the complete band, I knew instinctively that we would have liked to go one other route. I had blown my voice out the evening earlier than, so I needed to experiment with the association with out being the one singing the lyrics. I requested Matt Rowan to steer the track, and shortly after singing evenly alongside him to show the vocal melody, the studio magic was recognized. We had been presupposed to sing ‘Planting by the Indicators’ collectively. Matt has been one among my longest music collaborators to-date, and he had agreed to affix me once more as co-producer for this album.”
That stability of collaboration and instinct threads by the file. The place her debut and sophomore information leaned closely on rootsy folk-rock grit, Goodman noticed this one as an opportunity to broaden the palette. “Sonically, I got here into the recording course of with the aim of increasing my strategy with extra trendy parts than I utilized in earlier recordings. I like an natural strategy to recording, and selected a group of gamers and producers who I knew would be capable of actualize our imaginative and prescient.”
The opening observe, “Satellite tv for pc,” looks like a transmission from the in-between: A smoldering fever dream the place Goodman’s trembling voice hovers over sparse guitars and a gentle beat, whispering warnings into the static. “Look what it’s finished to you,” she repeats, the road touchdown like each a lullaby and a lament. The track aches with disconnection and distortion, circling anxieties in regards to the indicators we belief, the false lights we observe, and the widening hole between humanity and the pure world.
If “Satellite tv for pc” seems to the heavens, “Fireplace Signal” turns inward, naming the flame at Goodman’s core. Right here, she wrestles with exhaustion and endurance, questioning how a lot of the hearth one can bear to hold whereas nonetheless insisting on the significance of maintaining tales alive. Collectively, these early songs body the album as each cosmic and deeply private – tethered to the celebs whereas rooted in Goodman’s Kentucky soil.
Properly, I’m simply making an attempt to construct life
Nailing down shingles in the precise signal
No curling within the daylight
Ah, just like the previous of us mentioned they might
Some tried to make me out a liar
However I’m a dreamer with no solutions
Oh, who’s been dwelling just like the solar don’t shine
On the identical canine’s ass daily
Oh, and who’ll put the hearth out
Who’ll put the hearth out
That duality is laid naked in “Snapping Turtle” and “Michael Informed Me,” two of the album’s most piercing meditations. Within the former, Goodman transforms a childhood reminiscence into one thing mythic: A harrowing scene of children tormenting a turtle in a small Kentucky city, and her personal visceral act of stepping in. The brutality of the second turns into allegory, a meditation on cruelty, justice, and the impossibility of controlling how life unfolds. Over sparse, pulsing instrumentation, she sings with a voice that feels each fragile and unflinching, carrying grief and defiance in equal measure. “The opening scene of ‘Snapping Turtle’ nonetheless will get me,” Goodman admits. “Not all my songs are deeply private, however ‘Snapping Turtle’ is certainly one among them that basically got here from my life, so these lyrics imply quite a bit.”
If you’re a farm child in a small city
You drive earlier than the authorized age
And I received’t overlook that day
Once I drove up on some low-down youngsters
They had been all huddled round a poor snapping turtle
Taking turns with a stick
They had been beating the hell out of it
So I requested if I might take a lick
Once I raised my hand,
I introduced down the wrath of God himself
Beat these youngsters until they had been crying out for assist
I couldn’t assist myself
Then threw the turtle within the truck
Ooh, small city is the place my thoughts will get caught
– “Snapping Turtle,” S.G. Goodman
In “Michael Informed Me,” agricultural knowledge turns into metaphor, with pruning reframed as the fragile, harmful work of tending to human relationships – chopping again in hopes of regrowth, or risking complete severance. Each songs ache with grief and the hope of reconciliation, proof of Goodman’s potential to carry devastation and tenderness in the identical hand. The title observe then gathers all of those strands – the celestial and the earthly, the inherited and the intimate – and distills them right into a hushed hymn. “Planting by the Indicators” bends historical lunar knowledge right into a love track, a reminder that timing and tenderness matter as a lot within the coronary heart as they do within the backyard.
The file’s journey culminates in “Heaven Music,” a nine-minute odyssey that looks like each parable and pilgrimage. In its winding verses, Goodman units off on a highway journey towards the afterlife, filling the automotive with characters like Love, Religion, Hope, Sin, and even Jesus himself – every passenger a logo, every cease a reckoning. It’s sprawling, surreal, and darkly humorous, but beneath the allegory lies a uncooked meditation on grief and need, on what it means to depart behind the recognized searching for one thing past.
As the ultimate notes fade, we’re left with a haunting chorus – “perhaps if I see it, then I’ll need it” – a line that lingers like each query and confession. “Heaven Music” doesn’t supply decision, however it does one thing rarer: it leaves us suspended in surprise, reminded that the act of looking is itself sacred.
I purchased an previous Malibu from the man subsequent door
Then I did, what many have finished earlier than
I crammed the tank up full, and took out for heaven
Once I first minimize out, all I had was my canine
However I used to be advised he wouldn’t be right here for lengthy
Gave him a french fry and I requested him,
does he know the place we’re going?
He simply appeared out the window,
and to this point, no heaven was displaying
Then a stranger hopped in on the first purple mild
She mentioned, my title is Love and does that canine chew?
I advised her no however would she thoughts using shotgun?
Mentioned I by no means cared a lot for Love behind me or on the run
the primary hundred miles, the speaking was mild
She mentioned, you’ll be able to’t get to heaven driving by the evening
And by the way in which I by no means requested your purpose for going
If I’m heading there with you, i assume I higher be figuring out
And I mentioned
that perhaps if I see it, then I’ll need it
Possibly if I see it then I’ll need it
Taken collectively, Planting by the Indicators is not only a group of cathartic songs, however a panoramic physique of labor – intimate and immense, delicate and unflinching – that stands because the fullest realization of S.G. Goodman’s artistry up to now.
It succeeds as each private testimony and lasting legacy, remodeling her non-public historical past into one thing communal and resonant. Each observe feels sure by goal, every lyric sharpened by the burden of accountability, but the music itself breathes with heat, humanity, and beauty. In threading her personal story by historical knowledge and timeless truths, Goodman has created a deeply private album that additionally feels common: A soul-stirring reckoning with grief, inheritance, and survival, and a file destined to depart its mark on all who pay attention.
For her half, Goodman hopes Planting by the Indicators evokes reflection in its viewers. “I’d prefer to imagine the hints I’ve included result in individuals reflecting on their relationship with nature, with the celebs and vegetation and water and planets round us,” she shares. “We’re nature’s kids, and we must always act accordingly.”
This album has additionally been about reclaiming presence. “In contrast to a few of my earlier albums, I’m really making an attempt to be much less on-line and extra current in my life through the roll-out. Nevertheless it’s actually gratifying to see individuals reply to it particularly dwell. I performed two nights in my dwelling state of Kentucky proper after the album got here out, and that was a deeply particular expertise.”
And so Planting by the Indicators closes not simply as Goodman’s most bold and shifting file up to now, however as her most human – a reminder that life, just like the moon, strikes in cycles, and that our tales are value passing down.
Expertise the complete file through our under stream, and peek inside S.G. Goodman’s Planting by the Indicators with Atwood Journal as she goes track-by-track by the music and lyrics of her third studio album! In Goodman’s palms, the previous isn’t simply remembered – it’s replanted, in order that it might develop once more.
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Stream: ‘Planting by the Indicators’ – S.G. Goodman
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Satellite tv for pc
The entire premise behind the observe of Planting By The Indicators, is that we are able to look to nature to grasp when could be the most effective time to do one thing to get the most effective outcomes. I’m enthusiastic about how males are obstructing nature and its historical data, whereas the human situation stays the identical: that to outlive we should be in concord with nature and one another.
Fireplace Signal
My essence, “Who’ll put the hearth out?” The one one who can put my hearth out is myself. I imagine that I’m naming what I really feel is my hearth/essence all through the actions described within the track. After touring relentlessly from 2021-2023, I got here off the highway questioning my goal and selections. Persons are fast to inform you that you’re not working laborious sufficient, however gradual in telling you that you’re working laborious sufficient. That appears to be as much as you, in addition to your “why.” Moreover, I’ve centered myself round the concept that passing down tales connects us by generations. This notion was a driving drive within the creation of this album as a complete.
I Can See The Satan
To me this can be a track about how all through our lives we’re in a position to really feel the results of sunshine and what it brings in a bodily and religious means. I imagine that “strolling within the sunshine” is an optimistic declaration of mindset and worldview that’s laborious to hold onto, however I imagine that it’s symbolic of an innate need all of us share. I imagine it’s a definite human expertise to seek for the great all through circumstantial hardship. The previous saying of if you see sunshine by the rain, signifies that the satan is thrashing his spouse. The way in which this previous saying has been described to me is seeing the great by the dangerous.
Snapping Turtle
“Snapping Turtle” represents the expertise of wanting to manage outcomes, and the laborious realization that in lots of circumstances that’s not possible. As an alternative of getting management, we’re left merely a witness to the situations the life’s seasons supply in our personal lives and in these round us.
Michael Informed Me
If you prune a plant, the timing and method can quantity to a more healthy future for the plant or its destruction. In keeping with the indicators, there are higher instances to prune than others. In the case of human relationships, chopping individuals out of your life may end up in a relationship dying altogether, or house and time for it to develop a more healthy type. I describe a narrative the place I’ve skilled this in a relationship with a buddy. The story doesn’t include whether or not the friendship got here again, however the expertise of figuring out that it might.
Solitaire
The track “Solitaire” evokes the sport of life portrayed in two totally different card video games, with two totally different units of guidelines, however performed with the identical kind of playing cards. The river is present in Texas Maintain’em, and is the deciding consider a showdown through the sport.
I’m In Love
On this track I exploit imagery and situations which are easy and vivid regarding the human expertise of being in love. In contrast to lots of the ideas present in “Planting By The Indicators” this track hinges on a common expertise, which is simple for everybody to imagine and acknowledge in themself and others.
Planting By The Indicators
This track takes the bodily ideas of “Planting By The Indicators” and bends them right into a love track about making use of these to the emotional. A brief abstract could be that in love, now we have the bodily and emotional, and that even inside that actuality we’re striving for the most effective end result.
Heaven Music
Each human has inside them the need for what’s subsequent, tips on how to get there, and infrequently in response to the truth of leaving what is thought. Throughout that pure quest, people have created ideas (Love, Religion, Sin, and so on.) that inform our journey, all to attempt to higher perceive what it’s we must always count on, even when within the second we can not understand what lies forward. The track ends with the chorus of “Possibly if I see it then I’ll need it.” However this comes after the narrative ends with the protagonist being requested, “What they realized from Sin.” That is vital as a result of Sin wouldn’t be regarded as a typical medium of ethical crucial, however isn’t lust as need a purpose all of us transfer ahead a technique or one other?
On a private be aware, I imagine one of many ideas not talked about on this track was that of grief. It wasn’t intentional to not point out it, however I imagine that all the pieces that was talked about in “Heaven Music” had been the substances essential to really feel and settle for grief. Residing is shedding and gaining alongside the way in which, and if you’re doing it proper, grief will probably be your closest passenger and reward.
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