Kentucky singer/songwriter S.G. Goodman opens up about grief, legacy, and the traditional apply that impressed her breathtaking third album ‘Planting by the Indicators’ – a document of inheritance, survival, and the seek for which means. Talking with Atwood Journal, she displays on loss and accountability whereas taking us track-by-track by means of her most weak and visionary work thus far.
Stream: “Fireplace Signal” – S.G. Goodman
With annually and every funeral, I’m understanding the burden of my accountability in passing down tales and beliefs.
* * *
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 lovely document but: A wide ranging journey by means of grief and survival, inheritance and accountability, and the everlasting tug-of-war between management and give up. Her third document aches in and out; 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 cast within the fires of loss and grief, Planting by the Indicators is Goodman’s most weak and visionary album but – a resonant document of inheritance and survival, instructed with piercing honesty and soul-stirring cinematic grace. It’s an album that burns gradual and regular till it consumes every part in its path – together with our ears and our hearts alongside the way in which.
Launched June 20, 2025 through Slough Water Data / Thirty Tigers, Planting by the Indicators arrives because the extremely anticipated follow-up to 2022’s Enamel Marks and 2020’s Previous Time Feeling. These albums made Goodman certainly one of America’s most important singer/songwriters, incomes her essential acclaim, an NPR Tiny Desk efficiency, and the Americana Awards’ “Greatest Rising Artist” prize. She’s toured relentlessly with the likes of Jason Isbell, My Morning Jacket, and Margo Value, whereas her instant-classic ballad “Area and Time” has been coated by each Tyler Childers and Dev Hynes.
However the highway took its toll. Between the lack of her beloved canine Howard and the tragic demise of her pal 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 have the ability to hear our historical past,” she tells Atwood Journal. “With annually and every funeral, I’m understanding the burden of my accountability in passing down tales and beliefs.”
That urgency turned Planting by the Indicators, a document steeped within the historic apply of ‘planting by the indicators’ – the Appalachian people 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 historic apply, 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 circumstances to do issues than others,” Goodman explains. “As a result of all residing issues encompass water, it’s believed that every one residing 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 among the practices again to my pagan Celtic ancestors, in addition to speak about the way it was adopted to suit the beliefs of my conservative Christian ancestors. That’s my specific story, however all historic civilizations first seemed to nature to information them. It’s our collective heritage and belongs to every of us.”
As with each Goodman document, the making of Planting by the Indicators was as transformative because the songs themselves. “Individuals who document usually speak about ‘studio magic,’” she says. “One of many tracks I actually felt this expertise was whereas monitoring ‘Planting by the Indicators,’ my title monitor. My preliminary sonic strategy to that tune was not a stripped-down people tune, however after monitoring it with the total band, I knew instinctively that we wanted to go one other path. I had blown my voice out the night time earlier than, so I needed to experiment with the association with out being the one singing the lyrics. I requested Matt Rowan to guide the tune, and shortly after singing evenly alongside him to show the vocal melody, the studio magic was identified. We have been purported to sing ‘Planting by the Indicators’ collectively. Matt has been certainly one of my longest music collaborators to-date, and he had agreed to hitch me once more as co-producer for this album.”
That stability of collaboration and instinct threads by means of the document. The place her debut and sophomore data 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 purpose of increasing my strategy with extra fashionable components than I utilized in earlier recordings. I really like an natural strategy to recording, and selected a workforce of gamers and producers who I knew would have the ability to actualize our imaginative and prescient.”
The opening monitor, “Satellite tv for pc,” seems 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 completed to you,” she repeats, the road touchdown like each a lullaby and a lament. The tune aches with disconnection and distortion, circling anxieties concerning the alerts we belief, the false lights we comply with, and the widening hole between humanity and the pure world.
If “Satellite tv for pc” appears to be like 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 fireplace one can bear to hold whereas nonetheless insisting on the significance of retaining tales alive. Collectively, these early songs body the album as each cosmic and deeply private – tethered to the celebrities whereas rooted in Goodman’s Kentucky soil.
Properly, I’m simply making an attempt to construct a very good life
Nailing down shingles in the appropriate signal
No curling within the daylight
Ah, just like the outdated 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 residing just like the solar don’t shine
On the identical canine’s ass day-after-day
Oh, and who’ll put the fireplace out
Who’ll put the fireplace 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 certainly one of them that actually got here from my life, so these lyrics imply loads.”
While you’re a farm child in a small city
You drive earlier than the authorized age
And I received’t neglect that day
After I drove up on some low-down children
They have been all huddled round a poor snapping turtle
Taking turns with a stick
They have been beating the hell out of it
So I requested if I may take a lick
After I raised my hand,
I introduced down the wrath of God himself
Beat these children until they have 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 whole severance. Each songs ache with grief and the hope of reconciliation, proof of Goodman’s skill to carry devastation and tenderness in the identical hand. The title monitor 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 historic lunar knowledge right into a love tune, a reminder that timing and tenderness matter as a lot within the coronary heart as they do within the backyard.
The document’s journey culminates in “Heaven Track,” a nine-minute odyssey that seems like each parable and pilgrimage. In its winding verses, Goodman units off on a highway journey towards the afterlife, filling the automobile with characters like Love, Religion, Hope, Sin, and even Jesus himself – every passenger an emblem, 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 identified in the hunt for one thing past.
As the ultimate notes fade, we’re left with a haunting chorus – “possibly if I see it, then I’ll need it” – a line that lingers like each query and confession. “Heaven Track” doesn’t provide decision, however it does one thing rarer: it leaves us suspended in marvel, reminded that the act of looking is itself sacred.
I purchased an outdated Malibu from the man subsequent door
Then I did, what many have completed earlier than
I stuffed the tank up full, and took out for heaven
After I first minimize out, all I had was my canine
However I used to be instructed 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 seemed out the window,
and up to now, no heaven was exhibiting
Then a stranger hopped in on the first crimson gentle
She mentioned, my title is Love and does that canine chew?
I instructed her no however would she thoughts driving shotgun?
Mentioned I by no means cared a lot for Love behind me or on the run
the primary hundred miles, the speaking was gentle
She mentioned, you’ll be able to’t get to heaven driving by means of the night time
And by the way in which I by no means requested your motive for going
If I’m heading there with you, i assume I higher be figuring out
And I mentioned
that possibly 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 isn’t just a group of cathartic songs, however a wide ranging physique of labor – intimate and immense, delicate and unflinching – that stands because the fullest realization of S.G. Goodman’s artistry thus far.
It succeeds as each private testimony and lasting legacy, reworking her personal historical past into one thing communal and resonant. Each monitor feels sure by function, every lyric sharpened by the burden of accountability, but the music itself breathes with heat, humanity, and charm. In threading her personal story by means of historic 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 document destined to depart its mark on all who hear.
For her half, Goodman hopes Planting by the Indicators conjures up reflection in its viewers. “I’d wish to consider the hints I’ve included result in folks reflecting on their relationship with nature, with the celebrities and crops 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 truly making an attempt to be much less on-line and extra current in my life throughout the roll-out. But it surely’s actually gratifying to see folks reply to it particularly reside. 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 formidable and transferring document thus far, however as her most human – a reminder that life, just like the moon, strikes in cycles, and that our tales are price passing down.
Expertise the total document through our beneath stream, and peek inside S.G. Goodman’s Planting by the Indicators with Atwood Journal as she goes track-by-track by means of the music and lyrics of her third studio album! In Goodman’s fingers, the previous isn’t simply remembered – it’s replanted, in order that it could develop once more.
— —
:: stream/buy Planting by the Indicators right here ::
:: join with S.G. Goodman right here ::
— —
Stream: ‘Planting by the Indicators’ – S.G. Goodman
:: Inside Planting by the Indicators ::
— —
Satellite tv for pc
The entire premise behind the apply of Planting By The Indicators, is that we will look to nature to know when could be one of the best time to do one thing to get one of the best outcomes. I’m serious about how males are obstructing nature and its historic information, whereas the human situation stays the identical: that to outlive we have to be in concord with nature and one another.
Fireplace Signal
My essence, “Who’ll put the fireplace out?” The one one that can put my fireplace out is myself. I consider that I’m naming what I really feel is my fireplace/essence all through the actions described within the tune. After touring relentlessly from 2021-2023, I got here off the highway questioning my function and selections. Individuals are fast to let you know that you’re not working onerous sufficient, however gradual in telling you that you’re working onerous 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 means of generations. This notion was a driving pressure within the creation of this album as a complete.
I Can See The Satan
To me it is a tune about how all through our lives we’re capable of really feel the results of sunshine and what it brings in a bodily and religious method. I consider that “strolling within the sunshine” is an optimistic declaration of mindset and worldview that’s onerous to hold onto, however I consider that it’s symbolic of an innate need all of us share. I consider it’s a definite human expertise to seek for the great all through circumstantial hardship. The outdated saying of whenever you see sunshine by means of the rain, signifies that the satan is thrashing his spouse. The best way this outdated saying has been described to me is seeing the great by means of the unhealthy.
Snapping Turtle
“Snapping Turtle” represents the expertise of wanting to regulate outcomes, and the onerous realization that in lots of circumstances that’s unattainable. As a substitute of getting management, we’re left merely a witness to the circumstances the life’s seasons provide in our personal lives and in these round us.
Michael Informed Me
While you prune a plant, the timing and approach can quantity to a more healthy future for the plant or its destruction. Based on the indicators, there are higher occasions to prune than others. Relating to human relationships, chopping folks out of your life can lead to a relationship dying altogether, or area and time for it to develop a more healthy kind. I describe a narrative the place I’ve skilled this in a relationship with a pal. The story doesn’t include whether or not the friendship got here again, however the expertise of figuring out that it may.
Solitaire
The tune “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 think about a showdown throughout the sport.
I’m In Love
On this tune I exploit imagery and eventualities which might be 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 tune hinges on a common expertise, which is simple for everybody to consider and acknowledge in themself and others.
Planting By The Indicators
This tune takes the bodily ideas of “Planting By The Indicators” and bends them right into a love tune about making use of these to the emotional. A brief abstract could be that in love, we now have the bodily and emotional, and that even inside that actuality we’re striving for one of the best consequence.
Heaven Track
Each human has inside them the will for what’s subsequent, easy methods to get there, and sometimes in response to the truth of leaving what is understood. Throughout that pure quest, people have created ideas (Love, Religion, Sin, and so forth.) 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’t understand what lies forward. The tune 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 discovered from Sin.” That is important as a result of Sin wouldn’t be regarded as a typical medium of ethical crucial, however isn’t lust as need a motive all of us transfer ahead a technique or one other?
On a private be aware, I consider one of many ideas not talked about on this tune was that of grief. It wasn’t intentional to not point out it, however I consider that every part that was talked about in “Heaven Track” have 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 likely be your closest passenger and reward.
— —
:: stream/buy Planting by the Indicators right here ::
:: join with S.G. Goodman right here ::
— —
— — — —
Connect with S.G. Goodman on
Fb, TikTok, Instagram
Uncover new music on Atwood Journal
© Ryan Hartley
:: Stream S.G. Goodman ::
