S.G. Goodman

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2:20Pushkin.

2:24When S.G. Goodman released her debut album, Old Time Feeling, in 2020, critics hailed it as a stunning introduction to a bold new voice in Americana. Co-produced with Jim James of My Morning Jacket, the album showcased Goodman's ability to balance classic Southern sounds with progressive ideas, earning widespread acclaim and landing on numerous year-end best-of lists. S.G. was raised in Hickman, Kentucky, and a family of row crop farmers and storytellers. That upbringing shaped her worldview and her songwriting. She sings about small-town living with both deep affection and clear-eyed critique.

2:57Now with her third album, Planting by the Signs, Goodman continues to mine rich themes like love, loss, and reconciliation. The record is inspired in part by the ancient tradition of farming according to the cycles of the moon, a practice passed down through generations in her family. On today's episode, Bruce Helland talks to S.G. Goodman about growing up in a family of storytellers and how that tradition makes its way into her songwriting. She also discusses co-producing her latest album and how she was able to make a bigger, more atmospheric sounding record. And she performs a song, I'm In Love, live.

3:34This is Broken Record. Real musicians, real conversations.

3:43Here's Bruce Hedlum with S.G. Goodman. Tell me about Planting by the Signs. well planting by the signs which is you know the title of my album is an ancient belief system and in fact a lot of people i guess there's been a lot of different cultures that have looked to the moon and the stars for guidance and planting by the signs and i guess a simple way to put it is when people noticed that the moon affected water and everything that was made of water would probably be affected by the moon. Was this an idea you grew up with? Your dad was a farmer. Yeah, I kind of learned about this concept just over the kitchen table, old people in my community and it wasn't necessarily something that they pointed out that we believed in but for instance i was weaned for my mother by the signs my brother cuts his hair by the signs um i remember you know my grandmother saying things like the signs are in the head you'll if you pull a tooth right then you're gonna bleed more these types of things but in current day because you know i guess My lineage of knowing this belief system would have came through like probably Celtic, Irish, ancestors, German, whatever, passed through the Appalachian Mountains, settled in the South.

5:19And these are things that they still believed. But this was just kind of a common practice. And still people use this to this day to plant and to do certain things. What resonated for you when you were thinking of this album and the song? Well, I have five little nieces and a nephew, pretty young. And I guess there's probably this moment for everybody when you realize that you are going to be the one who's now the storyteller of the family. I remember my aunts and uncles and older people in my community telling stories and kind of giving me a context of things. And, yeah, that was just kind of a little bit of burden that I felt to do to make sure that my art reflected something more substantial than me just writing like a heartbreak song.

6:18You know, I mean, if people were looking back at music in this current moment, we could find a lot of heartbreak songs. But can we find songs that help us, you know, hold on to our history and kind of point to how our belief systems have always changed over time? Maybe that would help somewhere down the road. Are there songwriters who do that for you? Well, I would say that there are archivists that have done that for me. You know, I think of like Alan Lomax. And I think of how I've really enjoyed listening to old field recordings and people who've gone into different parts of the world and set up a little tape recorder and have captured something.

7:13And especially when it comes to old traditional folk tunes and melodies and things, you can see we're connected across history, especially when it comes to musical traditions, for sure. And that's also a sound, that field recording sound. That's something that finds its way into your albums. It finds its way into this album, I think. Yeah. You know, I guess a better way to put what made me want to write this album is I was really interested in how stories are passed down. And one thing that was important to me while making the album was to represent a lot of different ways stories are passed down.

7:59So that's one reason I included some field recordings in the actual album. That's the reason I included tattoos as my artwork that showcased, you know, little images that show up in the album. Tattoos are a way that we actually put stories on our own bodies, you know. Were there great storytellers in your family? Oh, absolutely. Who were the great storytellers? My favorite storytellers would be my Aunt Sally. and you know i think southerners sometimes they have their little signature thing that they say i would say that if people who are close to me i tend to go well comma and then go into it well my aunt sally her husband my uncle is named walter and the way she always starts a story is well I laughed and told Walter whatever it is and so she always says that and that's you know something I'll never forget but it's the it's really kind of the cadence and the flow of a story that I think is you know one of the most special things about a southern story because they're going to be long they're going to be winding and it's an art form for sure but yeah I was raised with the best I would say I was raised with the best storytellers Are you very conscious of that when you sit down to write?

9:23Are you thinking of telling stories in a certain way? I feel like it's something that comes kind of natural to me. And also, I'm a little bit sometimes too aware of it and self-conscious of it. So, for instance, in this album, my song Snapping Turtle, it is a real stream of consciousness, but it is a story and they do connect. but it is a very southern story because I go from talking about kids in a snapping turtle to all of a sudden we're not hearing about a snapping turtle anymore for quite a while and that's kind of a southern story and then at the very end you wrap it together and it all makes sense and you might have sat on somebody's porch for an hour and a half and but you know it's a whole cohesive story, but it might take you a minute to get there.

10:14So I did find myself really leaning into Southern storytelling in this album on several songs. These are character-driven stories often. And the character in Snapping Turtle is, well, there's the narrator and there's Leanne. So when you were writing that, were you writing the Leanne part and then the snapping turtle, which is almost an image that starts it. Yeah. How do you put those things together in your mind? Well, actually the line, I guess, that started the song snapping turtle was something that I actually heard when I was maybe 12 or 13, where a girl that I grew up with actually came to school after we were back from summer to tell us, you know, our friend group that she had spent the whole summer in Paris, which was Paris, Tennessee.

11:13And it was just like a little Paris that had an Eiffel Tower and everything. But I remember being in college several years later. I was in a little short story writing class and that image came up to me and I thought it was a really an interesting way to think about worldview maybe economic status opportunity fate all these things just in the fact that what's really sad is that my friend back in grade school to this day I know really doesn't know the difference of Paris France and Paris, Tennessee. And it's not coming from a judgmental place. It's just saying something really true about where I come from and about how I have been trying to process how different people are growing up right beside you and have been handed very different hands than others.

12:24So that line started that many years ago and reappeared here in this song. And the snapping turtle line, that was also a lived experience from childhood. When does that snapping turtle, when does that happen? What's the realization that you can put those together? I think really the moment when I realized that the snapping turtle was Leanne was when I realized the protagonist or, you know, the narrator's, I guess, purpose in that song, which was that they were playing God. When I say, when I raised my hand, I brought down the wrath of God himself. You know, I'm really, really intrigued with, you know, religion, free will.

13:20but mostly predestination. If I was honest with myself, I wasn't a philosophy major because I was going to take the LSATs and be a lawyer. I think I was obsessed with the question of predestination. And I took every course I could to understand more about this because it was a really important question for me in the context of how I was raised. I was raised Southern Baptist. I wasn't raised a Calvinist necessarily, but I was intrigued by it. I've always been really weird into doctrine and things like that. So the idea that an all-knowing God would know someone's fate and is said to be the creator, that has to bother you when you see things that don't seem fair.

14:11There is a line in that song, Small Towns Where My Mind Gets Stuck. you grew up in a small town you very much identify still with that town tell me about that line in the context of your growing up you know especially around how I moved from talking about the snapping turtle to going into Leanne the way this song kind of unfolded for me really started when I started therapy a line that didn't make it in this song was don't look at me when I'm crying I had this chorus an actual chorus that was in this song and I didn't I scrapped it but when I first started therapy I wasn't raising an emotional family you know we didn't cry I've gotten a little bit better at crying publicly in the last maybe like four years of my life but I remember being in this therapy recession and she something came but she had me do this thing EFT this tapping stuff and I just started crying and I was so unbelievably embarrassed and of course because instead of allowing myself to be vulnerable I just got angry and I was yelling at this therapist and saying like don't look at me right now like why are you staring at me when I'm doing this and And that led me kind of to write this entire song because I look at this song as a looking back and processing the past and context of my life.

15:56Growing up, was the church your first exposure to music? Definitely. Yeah, I would say the church was where I went to three concerts a week. But there was also, even though not everyone in my family was musical, I think it was a very common place that every house had a piano and someone in the family could play. And I do remember, you know, my Aunt Sally could play, my brothers could play different ones. And I remember very, as I was a really small child, when my dad and his brothers still farmed together, they had a fish fry at our family farm shop and had a string band there. And that was probably, I was, you know, three, four years old at that time.

16:45So I've been around it. But church is probably the biggest musical influence. Now, when you say there were concerts at church, were these secular music concerts or were these always? No, I just make a joke because I get asked a lot of time, like, what was your first concert? And I said, well, I went to three a week. Yeah. Oh, no, there was never secular music. There wasn't even you weren't allowed to have. I didn't grow up in a church where you had like a drum set or there was nothing like that. They believe that anything past maybe an organ, you might have been carried away by the energy. We wanted to stay focused.

17:22Okay. Okay. When were you first carried away by the energy? What music did you hear that made you think, this is something I want to do? My dad was a big music lover. He still is. And being in such a rural area, we spent a lot of time in the truck and tractor cabs and all that. He loves Super Tramp. You know that song, Take the Long Way Home? Sure. Okay, the harmonica. I just remember my dad just cranking that up in his old Chevy. So I guess what people or what I thought of as like classic rock, my dad was really into that. I had a neighbor who was really into old country, one of our landowner's wives that we took care of as she aged.

18:12But she would get on her piano and play old Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell and different songs like that for me. And that's how I was introduced to old country. And did you like it? Oh, I loved it. and I remember finding Miss Betty was this lady's name and my job since I think I was probably about 10 years old I started cleaning her house and she lived right across the street from my parents Miss Betty couldn't sing God bless her but when she'd sit down at that piano and start singing you know I was walking after midnight you know it was nice I loved the song but Miss Betty couldn't So when I found a little CD of some old country classics at Walmart, I could not wait to take my little CD player over there for Miss Betty.

19:00And she enjoyed it, and I enjoyed our time a lot better, too. We'll be back with more from S.G. Goodman after the break. In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal. T-Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network, according to the experts at Ooclas Speed Test, and they're using that network to launch Supermobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built-in security, and seamless satellite coverage. With Supermobile, your performance, security, and coverage are supercharged.

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20:26Best network based on analysis by Ukla of Speedtest Intelligence Data 1H 2025. Being a small business owner isn't just a career. It's a calling. Chase for Business knows how much heart and effort go into building something of your own. That's why they make your business growth their priority. The team at Chase takes the time to understand your mission. where you are now and where you want to go. Their broad range of solutions is designed with you in mind so you can bring your ideas to life. From banking to payment acceptance to credit cards, you can conveniently manage all your business finances all in one place with their digital tools.

21:06Looking for tips and advice? Their online resources are always available to give you the solutions you need to help your business thrive. See how your business can get stronger and go farther with Chase for Business. Learn more at chase.com slash business. Chase for Business. Make more of what's yours. The Chase mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply. JPMorgan Chase Bank. N.A. Member FDIC. Copyright 2025, JPMorgan Chase and Company. As a small business owner, you don't have the luxury of clocking out early. Your business is on your mind 24-7. So when you're hiring, you need a partner that works just as hard as you do.

21:46That hiring partner is LinkedIn Jobs. When you clock out, LinkedIn clocks in. LinkedIn makes it easy to post your job for free, share it with your network, and get qualified candidates that you can manage all in one place. When I'm trying to staff shows here at Pushkin, I always turn to LinkedIn first. Not only does it help me get a sense of who's currently looking for work, but I can easily search through people's experiences to find the exact right match for what I need. To help solve your hiring needs, there's post your job. LinkedIn's new feature can help you write job descriptions and then quickly get your job in front of the right people with deep candidate insights.

22:20Either post your job for free or pay to promote. Promoted jobs get three times more qualified applicants. Find out why more than 2.5 million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring today. Find your next great hire on LinkedIn. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash broken. That's linkedin.com slash broken to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. There are some Kentucky writers that write character songs. I thought of them when I was listening to her album, like Tom T. Hall. Oh, yeah. And Keith Whitley, who's – and a little Loretta Lynn, I have to say. Oh, yeah. She's got strong characters in her song.

22:56It's usually the narrator. Yeah. Were they influences on you? I mean, of course. I would imagine that I deeply appreciate what they do. Yeah. I think when it comes to character development, I have to give tribute to my writing mentor. His name is Delray Phillips. He was a short story writer, Pulitzer Prize nominee, actually. And I was lucky enough to study under him in college, and then we've remained very good friends. You know, he's the one who taught me to really respect your characters. In fact, I remember he was a big smoker up until recently, actually. Our college room was on the first floor of this building, and he'd go outside and teach us through the window while he'd chain smoke, okay?

23:51And I remember him yelling through the window one day that we were not good enough writers to kill our characters and that he better not have any papers turned in or somebody killed off somebody. He said, you got to earn that. And he also said something to me that made me think about characters differently. He said, when you die, like nobody's going to remember your name, but they might remember your characters. and that's how people actually live on. Tell me about the song Michael told me. It's a special song for me. I lost kind of a father figure. I called him Murray Dad Mike and he was super special to me and this song actually kind of revolves around his death but who I'm speaking to in this song is not Mike.

24:42It's actually a close friend of mine, bandmate. actually co-produced this record, someone who I've collaborated with for, you know, 13, 14 years now. But at the time that Mike passed away, we were about on our second year of not speaking with each other. We weren't on speaking terms. We had a little falling out. And it wasn't our first falling out. We've gone a year without speaking prior to that. So maybe in another like five years we'll um you know something might happen we'll do that but it's because he's a chosen brother sometimes siblings fight and we were just in our our moment in that time but when mike passed away we reached out to each other and i think sometimes death gives you a good reason to put your bullshit aside and and say i love you and i'm glad we're here together and now look what's happened you You know, this song is on the record.

25:45Matt was kind enough and wanted to collaborate with me again. And I believe in his gift so much, I asked him to be a co-producer. And it's been a really great way to reconcile. And now we have this to show for it, too. That's wonderful. Yeah. Now, I think when you're young, everybody thinks, gee, why'd the Beatles break up so soon? And then anytime you're in a creative endeavor with other people, you're like, how did they last so long? Yeah. Well, I think there's something special. You know, a friend told me once she was like, sometimes the only thing a person can imagine is having been wronged.

26:25Sometimes when you don't have the experience of reconciling with people, you can't imagine what's on the other side. Like it's safer to remain in hard feelings than it is to be vulnerable and imagine what it could be if you reconciled. Because sometimes you can't imagine what that would look like. That was a part of this album for sure. Now you write with him as well, is that? Yeah, we've written a few things. He ended up, we were fighting, not in a bad way, but we fight all the time. We're both really passionate people, but I had a song on the album, Satellite. He was making suggestions for the chord progression in that song, and I'm pretty hard-headed, but Matt was right.

27:18So he helped me with the music on that one. Okay. What's your typical writing process? How do you write? I wish I knew. I really do. You know, a few of the songs we've already talked about, they've come together over years. And what I've found works best for me is to always be willing to just keep notes, to not overthink. You know, I don't feel like you have to have a song written every day to be a songwriter. I don't write like that. Do I write every day? I would say I do. but what I consider writing every day might be just humming a little melody into a recorder or my phone or writing down a word that I think is interesting.

28:04And I think that allows me to always be in a creative state, but as far as having a fully finished product, I don't write like that. Does there come a point where you've got a collection of images, is things you want to put together and you do have to sit down and and work it out? Well, like, for instance, with this album, I knew. When I knew that I wanted to write about Plantin' by the Suns and I knew that my goal was I didn't want to write a college dissertation. I wanted to write songs that if picked apart and looked at individually, could stand alone by themselves. but I knew that I really wanted to try to write a cohesive song that would lead back to Planting by the Sun so the way I dealt with that was I read everything I could get my hands on I watched everything I could get my hands on I could talked everywhere I was I was even with Jason Isbell in And in Europe, last fall, late last fall, I was in Scotland.

29:10And I asked the coffee guy, I was like, you happen to know anybody who's into moon planting or planting by the signs around here? And he did. Isn't that cool? Wow. So I went to this, yeah, this little nursery and asked around. I knew even if I couldn't recall every single sign of the Zodiac or whatever, if I read enough and just entrenched myself in it, that it would come out in my writing. And it did. It did. And it was in a natural way when it came time to actually write it. The details were there. You do have a song called Fire Sign. I do. Seems to be the most explicit reference to that kind of thinking.

29:59How, for example, does it appear in Solitaire, which is probably my favorite song on the album? Oh, well, thank you. Well, have you ever noticed how a deck of cards has four suits, right? Mm-hmm. There's four seasons. How many weeks are in a year? That's how many cards are in a deck. It's set up actually to mimic a calendar and your experience passing through a year. In order to live by the belief of planting by the signs, you have to be aware and be able to tell what could possibly happen in the future by looking at the past. And so for me, that song is about seasons that have passed. That's the way I would make sense of it.

30:48And there's a beautiful line. It's about betting against yourself. And I don't remember the precise line. What is it? Yeah, it's Lord, you're going to lose if you bet against yourself because the song starts out. Solitaire is the only game where you don't need nobody's help. Lord, you're going to lose if you bet against yourself. Right. Because the chorus, you know, back to actually Miss Betty and Hank Sr. teaching me about, you know, some of the greats. He has this song, Lost on the River. And being that I was raised on, learned how to, you know, ski on the Mississippi River, I thought when Hank was talking about being lost on the river that he was talking about a physical river.

31:35Well, no. Years later when I learned how to play poker, which I'm terrible at, you know, I did. I was a second one stand in my first game, but apparently that's beginner's luck. But we were playing Texas Hold 'em. And Hank Sr. was talking about the river in Texas Hold 'em. So I went from talking about solitaire to where, yes, you're playing by yourself. where the river I'm speaking of in my song Solitaire is also, it's Hank's River. It's the river in Texas Hold 'em where you can lose it all. So much of that song seems informed by church. Yeah. It's, I think, as close as you get to a hymn on the album.