Album Review: Joe Goodkin - Self-Titled

 I’d do anything to keep her from my dark

And it is not the only line, however subtle, or not, that has been changed, but it is the change I find that I am most compelled by, or personally invested in.

And it is, of course, a decade’s worth of lived experiences, that would give reason for a lyric to be altered, however slightly, when sung now—carrying the weight of time and distance with it. And for as often as I think about the notion of the “life of an album” in comparison to “how an album lives,” because those are, at least for me, two different things, what I have come to understand, in giving this small lyrical change consideration, is that this notion can be broken down further, to the “life of a song,” and what I am certainly much more fascinated with—“how a song lives.”

Because in the original recording, from 10 years ago, the line is, “I’d do anything to keep her from the dark.”

It, again, is a subtle change here. Just a single word. And it doesn’t change the meaning, I don’t think. Not exactly. “The dark” implies something broader, or something outside of oneself. The darkness, or sorrows, of the world at large. The things we find upsetting that are, perhaps, unavoidable, regardless of how much we may try. 

The implication of a grand gesture of protection to shield whomever from any discomfort, or unhappiness, in their day.

“My dark,” is a turn inward, then. Much more personal. And more revealing—the implication there is something within you, or me, and it would behoove us to prevent another person from seeing.

Or even knowing. 

Because that’s where we end up, isn’t it. There is a darkness. Despite, however, herculean our efforts might be at hiding it. It is still there, often just underneath the surface. And that is where we end up, isn’t it. Trying to keep someone from that. Uncertain to what extent to divulge, if anything at all. 

You spend the days, however many—months, sometimes entire years, treading water. Until, of course, it all becomes too much. And then things feel more emergent than they ever did before. 

You keep people from your dark, but in doing so, you wonder how much longer until you drown. 

*

The past beats inside me like a second heart.

I think about that a lot—that line, yes, from John Banville’s The Sea—that single line alone compelling me to seek out, and read an entire novel I knew nothing about ahead of time. But I think about the way we carry our pasts with us. About the points in our lives—now, and where we were, or who we were, a decade ago. I think about the space and the distance that forms between the two. How have we changed. How do we grow. What do we take with us. What are we asked, by ourselves or others, to leave behind. 

How we are, still, perhaps the same, in some regard. 

And this is, of course, a story that I have, to at least an extent, told before. So you will have to forgive me. 

A decade ago, I was roughly a year into my job as a news writer. It was a position that, within just a few months after it had been offered to me, and I had nervously, but excitedly, accepted it, I understood I just did not have the disposition, or the constitution, to do it. Or to do it well—or, to do it with the enthusiasm and tenacity that my editors would have wished me to have. 

Or, maybe, I just did not have the disposition, or the constitution, to write for an understaffed, small-town newspaper. 

I was in over my head a lot of the time with stories I was asked to pursue. It was demanded I ambulance chase. That I leer, or skulk around on the periphery of a tragedy, or a moment of vulnerability. I was assigned areas of coverage that were of little, if any, interest to me personally, and I often questioned if they were even areas of interest to the readership.

I was expected, regularly, to generate a story where there simply was not one. 

A decade ago, I was prone to terrible anxiety. Working for the newspaper very quickly exacerbated how I felt. The deadlines always looming. Phone calls, and messages, to sources going unreturned. Interviews going poorly. Stories falling through completely at the last minute. The required attendance at an evening event, or a meeting, which then required a story to be quickly turned around, and filed. 

And I don’t think there was one specific thing. There was the job. And there was the grief over a sudden and devastating loss at the beginning of the year that I found I was unable to process. So I just held on to it. It all began to compound, I suppose, into something much larger than anxiety. Something much more serious than the melancholy I was often drawn to. 

There was a long, slow descent into total darkness. I lost interest in literally everything. Writing, for myself, for “fun” outside of writing for my job, became an insurmountable chore. I had opened my arms and embraced a serious depression, and I was uncertain how to let go. Even after I had left the job as a news writer, nearly two years to the day I was hired, I still found, for a long time after, the darkness remained. 

And this is of course a story that I have told before. So you will have to forgive me.

A decade ago, after years fronting the Chicago-based alternative rock outfit Paper Arrows, and while traveling on his own, to college campuses across the country, to perform an original cycle of songs based on The Odyssey, singer and songwriter Joe Goodkin was preparing his solo debut—Record of Life, a highly personal collection of six songs that he would connect musically, and thematically, to two subsequent releases, both issued in 2017—Record of Loss, and Record of Love.

Goodkin’s name came across my desk maybe six months into my job at the newspaper. 

The stories I enjoyed working on the most, or maybe they were just the ones that caused me the least amount of stress, were the arts and entertainment pieces I would put together for each edition. Goodkin, near the beginning of 2015, was coming to Northfield, Minnesota, to perform The Odyssey for both of the small colleges in town—I was acquainted with the woman who worked in communications and public relations on one of the two campuses, and she would regularly email me press releases, or information about upcoming events, with the hopes that I would pursue these for my arts coverage.

A decade has passed, but I can remember looking up Goodkin on YouTube, and finding a video of him performing a Magnolia Electric Company cover. 

At this point, my writing skills were apparently impressive enough to land me the job at the newspaper, despite not having a background in journalism; admittedly, two years in, the way I wrote about music was certainly in its infancy, but Anhedonic Headphones did come up during my exchange with Goodkin, w/r/t his performances of The Odyssey. He happened to mention that, when Record of Life was finished, and slated for release, he would pass along a copy of it to me if I was interested in listening, and writing something about it. 

I think a lot about the idea of dynamism.

It’s something that I admire about Alyssa, my best friend, and how she writes. For her newsletter, Soft Earlobe, she writes personal, observational essays—often a reflection on a recent experience. And I tell her this all of the time, but she has a vivid, strong voice on the page. Her pieces are very funny, yes, and they are written in an accessible way. Though what I find most compelling about her work is how insightful and thoughtful it is. 

Alyssa—often for herself, and sometimes to bring to the writing group she is in, will write fiction, which is a genre I have never attempted. And there is a dynamism, then, in her words, and how she uses them. Of the inflection they have. The work is, of course, still accessible. And it is still her voice on the page—vivid and strong. The work is thoughtful, and insightful. But there is a difference. And that is what is so admirable. The believable way to build something from nothing, and make it look effortless. To remove yourself from the story, as the protagonist, in favor of someone else. 

I think a lot about the idea of dynamism.

And I think about the dynamism, and the skill, and the thought that Joe Goodkin has in his songwriting—specifically his ever-growing body of work from the last decade. Because this dynamism, and ability to continue to grow, is truly impressive and remarkable. 

Like the ability to take on something daunting like The Odyssey, and later, The Iliad, and turn them into understandable, approachable collections of songs that, even after they have been adapted, retain the core of the original stories. 

Or the ability to be unabashedly personal and confessional—taking memories from childhood, and ruminating on the ideas and interconnectedness of love, loss, and grief, and meticulously craft all of that into a series of evocative, often haunting songs.

The more I have given consideration to Joe Goodkin’s new, self-titled EP, the more I have started to look at it as a slight inverse of the album he released in 2019—Paper Arrows found him revisiting the material he and written and recorded while fronting the titular band, and rearranging the songs for sparse accompaniment. 

Ten years is both a long time, and not. But I think about the way we carry our pasts with us. About points in our lives—now, certainly, and where we were, or who we were, a decade ago. I think about the space and the distance that forms between the two. 

How have we changed in that time. How do we grow. What do we take with us. What are we asked, by ourselves or others, to leave behind. 

To commemorate the tenth anniversary of Record of Life, Joe Goodkin takes six of the songs from the 18 total within the Record of series, and dramatically reinterprets them through often complexly layered and robust full band arrangements. This act, again, speaks to Goodkin’s dynamism as a songwriter—this ability to revisit material written a decade prior, and look beyond the life of the song to discover how the songs continue to live.

*

The full band arrangement found here is not Goodkin’s first, more recent foray into working with more instrumentation after originally recording all of these songs alone, on the guitar—he was backed by additional layers on 2023’s Consolations and Desolations, as well as throughout the song-a-month singles he issued in 2020. And it is admittedly a little startling, at first, to hear these new interpretations of something familiar, and how the addition of percussion, pulsating bass lines, and in a few places, the mournful and soulful sound of an organ changes, or alters the feeling of the song. The tempo is maybe a little different—tighter, maybe, or perhaps it has just a little more riding on it as it moves forward.

I found I wrote the word “soulful” more than once when I was sitting down with Joe Goodkin, analytically listening—specifically in the second half of this collection, he taps into this very specific aesthetic when the time is right, using it as a kind of punctuation. It appears near the explosive final moments of the reflections on mortality in “Sarah and Julie,” and in the slow, bluesy smolder of “My Mother’s Voice”—even though it is, lyrically, a sweeter song, there is a tense of tension that Goodkin and the musicians featured on this recording sustain until its final act, when it loosens during the interplay between the organ, and the riffs on the piano.

And there is, of course, a spectral nature to the songs Goodkin recorded for the Record of series—certainly the figurative ghosts that are depicted within many of the songs, but there is a literal haunting nature to how these songs sound. In updating these six songs, that palpable, haunting, lonesome feeling is gone, but you can still feel the sorrow, or somberness, present within the lyrics, and the stories told, even though now they are backed by lush arrangements. 

Opening with a big swoon of the organ—truly reminiscent of the instrument’s use within Bringing Down The Horse-era Wallflowers, the collection’s penultimate track, “Never Come Back,” is the most outwardly soulful sounding, or the one that works to sustain that kind of feeling until the final notes are played. 

There is an effortlessness, I think, to how a song like this sounds in the end but there is of course a kind of precision required to make it happen, and for the all the elements to truly tumble together, rise, and fall, at the right moments. 

For the recording of Joe Goodkin, Goodkin teamed with producer and engineer Brian Deck—like Goodkin himself, Deck is based in Chicago, and has a long, storied history. A member of cult act Red Red Meat, Deck has helmed records for Califone, Modest Mouse, Iron and Wine, Josh Ritter, and Counting Crows. With records like Iron and Wine’s Our Endless Numbered Days, or Josh Ritter’s masterful The Animal Years there is a kind of live, in the room, looseness to how they sound—the kind of work in the studio that really captures a moment in time, and Deck brings that to what he’s done here with Goodkin. There are a lot of layers, and moving parts, happening in some of these recordings, but at no point is it ever at risk of collapsing under itself, or overshadowing Goodkin’s storytelling and songwriting. 

With “Never Come Back,” there is a crispness, or a sharpness, to every hit of the snare drum, and there are these, like, enormous and intentional pauses that hang in between the beat—silences used as a kind of instrument themselves, and while the steady strum of the acoustic guitar keeps the rhythm going forward, and the mournful soul of the organ continues to ripple throughout. Later, as the song lurches towards its chorus, Goodkin is joined by subtle flourishes of horns, adding another layer within the song’s fabric that walks the fine line between soulful and somber.

Taken from the second of the three EPs in the Record of series—Record of Loss, “Never Come Back” is a brief meditation on the idea of a sudden loss, and how that can resonate throughout a lifetime. 

Goodkin’s family, and family history, play enormous roles in these songs. And “Never Come Back” begins with an anecdote, where he recalls a seemingly harmless conversation with members of his family, about people who more or less left their lives behind to go help with rescue efforts in a post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. 

This stirs something within Goodkin’s father. “And my dad spoke up,” Goodkin sings, his voice rich, though fragile in how he recalls this memory. “With an edge in his voice, he said, ‘You never know when someone might walk out of your life, and never come back.’”

The second verse, then, details the unexpected death of Goodkin’s father’s father—“I thought of that day in 1963,” he explains, choosing his words, and his description, very carefully. “When my dad’s dad said goodnight to the kids and went out to go to a party. A knock at the door,” Goodkin continues, using only certain details to paint a much larger portrait. “And tears all around. And all those years later, those tears—they still hadn’t hit the ground.”

And there was a time, a decade ago, when I was more consumed, regularly, with grief. I don’t think it ever really leaves you. Maybe, over time, it feels less consuming. But it is always there, and as Goodkin depicts in “Never Come Back,” it can come out at perhaps inopportune moments. 

For a long time, years, really, I was looking for the space where both grief and joy could coexist. I had been told—assured, even, I think, that this was possible. For these two extremes to work together, and allow courtesy to one another. 

I don’t know if that’s really true. And I couldn’t tell you when, exactly, I realized I stopped looking, or hoping, to find this place.

The past beats inside me like a second heart, and there is no resolution, really, for grief. And there is no resolve as “Never Come Back” shuffles to its conclusion—it ends, really, with a moment of hesitation, and how that is something, like grief, that we can linger on too long. “And I should have spoken up,” Goodkin explains. “And said I love you all. Because you never know when someone might walk out of your life and never come back.”

*

And there was, of course, an intentionality to how Goodkin selected the songs featured on each of the Record of releases in 2015 and 2017. Record of Life served as an introduction to the ideas, or themes, that he wished to explore further, or deeper, on the subsequent EPs—Record of Loss, as one might anticipate based on the title, is the darkest of the three, with Record of Love serving not as the place where grief and joy coexist, but finding a reluctant kind of acknowledgement about the human condition. 

We will love. We grow, or change, and we hope that those we care about will grow alongside us.

We will experience loss. It doesn’t mean we have to accept it. And we have to figure out how to carry it, or ultimately, what to do with it in the end.

There are times when, across the 18 tracks from the Record of series, the intentionality or connectivity is subtle, but with just six of those songs featured on Joe Goodkin, the intentional nature, or the connectedness, has to be much more direct. 

A question that Goodkin posed on Record of Life, and poses here, again, in the first song, “Gray,” is “How do we say goodbye,” is answered in this collection’s final track, the triumphant “Ashes.”

“Ashes,” from the moment it begins, wastes no time, and is musically ascendant—enormous, and towering in how it is arranged, which does create a contrast with how the original is structured. Found on Record of Love, it is much slower in tempo, moving forward with the delicate plucks of Goodkin’s guitar strings and the ripple of a cavernous, percussive loop playing underneath him. But back with the accompaniment of both horns and strings, a strong rhythm bashed out on the drum kit, and dramatic, punctuative, somber piano chords, this iteration of “Ashes,” in some regard, is reminiscent in aesthetic to R.E.M.’s “Imitation of Life.”

And with the intentionality of placing “Ashes” at the end of this EP, the song itself, in how it is structured, is also very deliberate—with just how high Goodkin allows it to tread between emotive simmering and then jubilant soaring, it is a song that knows precisely what it is doing, and what kind of tone it wants to strike and then maintain. 

Continuing with the personal nature of these songs, in exploring people, places, and specific moments, or memories, “Ashes” does find Goodkin working towards the acknowledgement of mortality and a kind of closure. The narrative finds Goodkin on a mountain in Tennessee, with his family, releasing the ashes of loved ones—his grandparents, and his uncle. 

“All three of them left us in the blink of an eye,” he exclaims. “One after another, after another.”

There is an intensity, or growing kind of urgency to the delivery of Goodkin’s vocals, as the song continues—a kind of grappling with what it is like to not only have faced loss, but then know what to do in the aftermath.

Goodkin explains he felt helpless, and with the the self-aware nature of this collection of songs, as well as the Record of series as a whole, he sings, in a very soulful moment where he’s assisted by the voices of backup singers. “I did what I could,” he exclaims. “I remembered them in song.”

The songs found within Joe Goodkin are, of course, extremely personal—personal in a revealing way. They are an invitation. They are about Gookin’s life. His family. His losses. They are incredibly vivid portraits, but the thing about Goodkin as a songwriter is that even in these personal depictions, the ideas, or themes, remain accessible, which I think is truly remarkable. Because even in a song like “Ashes,” where he howls, in the cathartic final verse, “I put my hands in their earthly remains, and toss the gray grit into the breeze,” he describes an experience that is extraordinarily resonant.

“I don’t know what I believe, but I say a prayer anyway.”

Because I think that if you are, like me, a non-believer, or if you are at a point where you are simply uncertain what, or how much, to believe, in something “larger” in the universe, you still find yourself returning to this—the kind of solace, or perhaps small comfort, that comes from saying something, to yourself, when confronted with a moment such as this.

And the question posed earlier in this collection of songs, and the question that many of us will perhaps face in our lives, or maybe already have faced more times than we wish to—How do we say goodbye, is answered here, in “Ashes,” and done so in a stirring way.

“This is how we say goodbye.”

There is no right or wrong way. And even in hanging onto grief, you make room for something else. And you figure out the way to say goodbye that feels the most authentic.

*

And I am often, perhaps too often, giving consideration to mortality, and to time. 

I think about the way we carry our pasts with us. About the points in our lives—now, yes, of course, and where we were, or who we were, a decade ago. Or more, even. About the space and the distance that forms between those two. How we have changed. How we grow. What we take with us. What we are asked, by ourselves or by others, to leave behind.

You give consideration to time, and mortality. You are giving thought to age.

And there are any number of things one can think about with the idea of age. It is, I believe, too easy to reflect on where you are now, and perhaps lament what you have not accomplished yet—or what you wished you had done prior to arriving at the point you are now. 

And that is not what Goodkin is asking us to consider, with him, on the EP’s second track, “As Old As I Am Now.” At least, I do not think he’s asking that of us. If anything, I think he is asking us to simply reflect, and remain in the moment he crafts—taking what we can from it for ourselves. 

The original recording of “As Old As I Am Now” is from Record of Life, and even in the sparse arrangement of that version, Goodkin plays the rhythm out on the guitar, running it through the slightest delay, so that there is the delicate, though important, bounce that occurs. And I am remiss to call any of Goodkin’s material hopeless in how it sounds, or in his writing—though there is a rather bleak outlook that runs throughout Record of Loss, but given the way it rollicks, even with restraint, I would say “As Old As I Am” is certainly one of his more hopeful, or optimistic songs.

That hope, and optimism, are certainly not lost in this updated recording, though, with the rhythm shifting from less of a bounce, or a rollick, into more of a delicate shuffle with a little bit of a playfulness, or a sweetness to it, which mirrors the affections Goodkin reminisces with in his writing.

The finger plucked bounce of the guitar strings is now a clean, strong strum, with momentum that continues to swirl—it makes the song move just a little faster, this time, in comparison to the original. And it, even in the kind of quiet reserve that it operates from, or a kind of gentleness, “As Old” works with the same kind of intentionality or deliberateness—you can hear it, as the first verse unfolds, when additional instruments are introduced right on cue, like the low rumble of a bass, contemplative and strong piano chords, and the flare of the horns. Then, later, as Goodkin moves from one memory to another in his writing, we hear the sound of the organ, and the tumbling brush of the percussion, creating something that isn’t really “twangy,” but there is just a hint of a folksy kind of drawl to it.

Goodkin, in his songwriting, is always evocative—regardless of what, or who, he is writing about. The imagery is often arresting in how vivid it is, something that, coupled with his knack for infectious melody writing, makes his songs not only memorable, but also, like, they really linger. Sometimes they haunt. There is just a profundity to it all that is truly remarkable. 

“As Old As I Am Now,” as it begins, in the first two verses, is a look at specific memories, or moments, from Goodkin’s childhood—including a train ride through Chicago with his father, and a specific photograph featuring his mother, and his sister when she was very young. And these, are of course, extremely personal vignettes to reflect upon, but in how personal they are, there is still a kind of understanding that we all, to the extent we are able, have memories like this. And as he details what it was like taking the train to the end of the line with his dad, or recalling the living room from the house he lived in when he was a kid, he does so with a real graciousness, and in doing that, encourages us to remember—and maybe you already do this—but to remember moments like this from our own childhoods. Of weekly rituals or routines that were exciting, and still ignite something in us now as we reflect. 

Or to examine old photographs and return to those moments, and to give consideration to the looks on the faces that were preserved.

Goodkin spends the first two verses in the past, and in both instances, makes the brief but extremely poignant revelation about time, and age. That in these moments, his parents were as old as he is now. 

And as he does in other songs on Joe Goodkin, Goodkin knows when, within the song, to push things out to a place of urgency, or immediacy, and allows the song to grow until it feels like it might burst. That happens within the final verse of “As Old As I Am,” when, in the reflections and memories of his parents, and his life, he laments that he’s now getting “to the age where people start to go away,” and recalls the loss of his grandmother in 2013, and her final days, being tended to, with care, by a nurse from Nigeria. 

The climax of the song comes during a celebration of life, of sorts, for Goodkin’s grandmother, as he depicts gathering with his relatives after her passing, to talk about her life. It is a revelatory moment for him, within the context of the song, and the ideas of time and age, “And I looked at all the smiles of all the people who shaped my life,” he explains, before adding, “And I knew some day they’d be gone—and once they were as old as I am now.”

And it is remarkable, I think, the way this song, and really all of the songs on Joe Goodkin, have grown and transformed into things much larger in sound, or in scope, and in doing that, have made space for the sentiments within the lyrics to flourish. “As Old As I Am Now” is among the finest of this collection, though, just in the feeling that it captures, of a kind of wistfulness, and manages to sustain through a tumbling, jubilant arrangement that reaches a brief moment of catharsis, or understanding, before it resolves. 

*

And I am often looking—perhaps too often, honestly, to make connections to things that are not exactly there. I am too analytical. Or, I read entirely too much into something, or wish to extract something personal and resonant, when it is not necessary for me to do so. 

I stretch things, sometimes beyond their limit, for the sake of what I call my “way into” writing about an album as thoughtfully as I am able to.

I’d do anything to keep her from my dark

And it is not the only line, however subtle, or not, that has been changed, or altered in some way on Joe Goodkin, but it is the change I find that I am most compelled by.

Joe Goodkin opens with “Gray,” which was originally the second track out of the six found on Record of Life. And it does really serve as an introduction to ideas, or themes, that he returned to elsewhere in the other songs included on the subsequent Record of EPs. The ideas of mortality—being aware of both your own, and of somebody else’s, and the notion of an impending loss. Because in a number of the instances, across “Gray”’s sprawling four verses, there is this feeling of “mourning the living.” You get ahead of yourself—it is impossible, sometimes, not to, regardless of how much you know you should be more in the moment rather than what comes after.

It is the song where he asks the question that is eventually answered, or at least there is a response to, by the end of this collection of songs.

How do we say goodbye.

I don’t think, in terms of how these six songs have been developed, or nurtured, and brought from their very skeletal beginnings into the state you find them here, that there are any that aren’t executed well—it certainly can’t be an easy thing to do. To take something that was originally written and performed on the guitar, and to go back into it with ears that can hear the potential.

I tell you that to tell you this—maybe it is because “Gray” is the first song on Joe Goodkin, and as I sat down to listen, for the first time, I was not sure what to anticipate in terms of how Goodkin and producer Brian Deck would arrange these songs, but the result here is simply arresting, and astounding. I am not often truly startled by a song, or an album, but within the first seconds of the song, as I heard the hypnotic, quickly paced rhythm being literally plunked out on a prepared piano, I was stopped in my tracks, giving it my full attention.

The low, flat rumbling of this piano introduction to the song gives way, and softens a bit, once the sound of the drum kit, Goodkin’s acoustic guitar, and the steady pulse of the bass guitar arrive, along with Goodkin’s breathless, gentle delivery of the first verse. 

And I think this comes simply with the nature of this project—revisiting, and in a sense, revising. Or rebuilding. All of the songs featured here, in their original form, as well as the other 12 tracks that Goodkin could have chosen from, are incredibly fragile. But that’s the point. The guitar playing is sparse, and often feels very in the moment. There’s a looseness to it all—not like it is being barely held together, but that it doesn’t have to be absolutely perfect. There is something incredibly admirable about that, though. These fragments, and what he does within them.

There are still hints of that looseness on Joe Goodkin, of course. For as many elements as have been orchestrated on every track, there is still that kind of in-the-moment feeling. A warmth. An invitation. To live within this space, as Goodkin recounts these memories. I say all of this because the ways these songs have been rearranged do appear very natural as they unfold, but there has to be such a meticulous nature to it all. And certainly I hear that in “Gray,” with the way that additional elements arrive, or the song is allowed to ascend slightly, as a means of emphasizing shifts within the lyrics and narrative.

The soothing, melancholic hum of the organ appears between the end of the first of the four vignettes, then recedes after the short chorus—this is followed shortly by the punctuative swooping of string instruments within the second verse, which grow more intense, and more present. 

And you can kind of predict when it will happen—with the rhythm, up until this point, being more of a subtle and practical element within the song, but a roll of the snare drum once Goodkin guides us into the penultimate verse does allow the drums to arrive, in full, before they are given a very effective spotlight in the final verse, as the rest of the instruments drop out momentarily, before rejoining, swelling and swirling, and bringing the song to its conclusion.

How do we say goodbye

And it, I hope, has been implied already, but there is a confessional nature to a lot of Goodkin’s songwriting—specifically within the original Record of EPs. And if not confessional, then perhaps just unflinching in their honesty. Songwriting should be honest, and it should be personal. And to the extreme that some of these songs are, the thing that makes Goodkin such a talent as a writer is his ability to not only write from “the heart,” but from “his heart,” and still make it accessible and genuinely interesting.

The second and third verses of “Gray” detail Goodkin watching his grandparents age, and his visits to see them in an assisted living facility—and his depictions of aging, specifically with his grandfather, who at the time the song was penned, was in his early 90s, are vivid. And in how vivid, and real they are, there is a kind of discomfort to it that we are encouraged to sit with. And perhaps to give more consideration to.

Goodkin spends a portion of the verse dealing the ways in which his grandfather’s faculties have declined, before remarking, “He does his best, like he’s done for so long,” and then adds, near the end, in a way that is truly bittersweet, “I sit with him, and every Thursday, and in this little room, we listen to the radio play.”

His grandmother is in the same assisted living facility, we learn, within the third verse. In better health, at least as depicted in “Gray,” there is a bittersweetness here too in how Goodkin interacts with her—a kind of warmth, patience, and kindness. “She saves me cans of lemon-lime pop,” he explains. “I don’t really drink them, but I won’t tell her to stop.”

“We sort through her pictures and she tells me who’s who,” he continues, towards the end of the verse, “And I’ve seen them all before, but each time, I learn something new.”

And the question is, then, asked twice in the chorus to “Gray.” And in asking it twice, Goodkin does actually ask himself, and us, as listeners, two different things. “How do we say goodbye,” he begins. “When we have the chance to write the last words of a precious life. How do we know when to say goodbye.”

Because knowing how, and knowing when, are not the same.

A decade ago, when I wrote a piece about Record of Life, shortly before it was released, I opened with the line, “Every time I’ve listened to Record of Life, I’ve started to cry.” The kind of endorsement that, for even as heavy-handed as I can see it now to be, Goodkin would use in 2017 in the press release announcing his follow-up, Record of Loss.

And it was not hyperbole—it still isn’t. 

Because there is something emotionally stirring about Goodkin’s writing—across the board, yes, but specifically here. And certainly within the first three songs on the release, like the self-reflective and immersive “Dog and Cat,” and the wistful and somber “My Friends.” 

And I think that maybe, in 2015, among the things about Goodkin and his music that were resonant with me, was the vignette that is at the top of “Gray,” where he depicts with a tenderness and compassion, caring for an aging companion animal.

How do we say goodbye.

How do we know when to say goodbye.

Because in 2015, Goodkin’s EP found me three months removed from loss, and in the cloud, or haze, of grief. 

“Up and down the stairs we went in the gray of a winter that wouldn’t end,” he recalls. “An old black dog with bad hips, and a cough. Some days, we’d have to carry him the last flight up.”

Goodkin, then, recalls adopting his dog over a decade prior. “My ex-wife was there as I put him in the car,” he explains. “But he was always mine right from the start.”

And it is not written about that often, I do not think, in contemporary popular music, and it does certainly speak to a specific kind of listener. But there is something about the way Goodkin addresses and speaks of his dog. A reflective kind of humility, maybe. “Through the years, he kept me in line. When things were tough, he was there all the time,” he continues, as the verse is ending. “Now he’s gray and can’t hear a thing. But I’ll carry him up those stairs again and again.

How do we say goodbye.

How do we know when to say goodbye.

They are two different questions. 

They are two different questions, and sometimes the answer is the same for each. Sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes you don’t know how to say goodbye. Maybe you never will. You try your best, in the moment, and hope that it was enough. Or the right thing. Or that it was understood. 

Sometimes you don’t know when to say goodbye. Sometimes it isn’t your decision to make, which is something you do ultimately carry with you. 

There are days, still, when the grief feels heavy.

And I am always looking to make connections to things that are not exactly there. I am too analytical. Or, I guess, I often read entirely too much into something or wish to extract something personal and resonant, when it is not necessary for me to do so. I stretch things, sometimes beyond their limits, as a means of trying to find my “way into” writing about an album as thoughtfully as I would like to.

Loss, in a number of forms, hangs over “Gray” like a cloud—that is, of course, the point. But the song, in its final verse, moves away from the kind of mourning of living, or the bracing oneself for the inevitable end, into a brief meditation on mortality, and on time.

The last verse, longer than the others, or at least revealing more a little more detail, finds Goodkin recalling when he met his wife—meeting her within a few months after he had separated from his ex. “I sat by her at drinks that night, and something wrapped my heart up tight. Cut to 2010 and the 10th of July, in front of friends and family, she became my wife.”

And there is a kind of getting ahead of yourself, in a sense, when you mourn the living. And maybe it is just kind of natural, to catastrophize. To be unable to remain in the moment you’re in, and anxiously spiral about the uncertainty of what lies ahead.

“I’m younger than her, it never mattered much,” Goodkin continues. “Once in a while, with the usual stuff—when planning our future, we think of a time when one of us might leave the other behind.”

And it is not the only line, however subtle, or not, that has been changed, or altered, or effectively updated, in some way, on Joe Goodkin. And it isn’t even the only change made within this verse on “Gray,” but it is the change that I find I am most compelled by. 

It is a decade’s worth of lived experiences that would give reason for a lyric, or many lyrics, across the EP, to be altered, however slightly, when sung now. Because they carry the weight of time and distance with them. And I am often thinking about the idea of the “life of an album” in comparison to “how an album lives,” because for me and maybe for you, too, those are two different things. And what I have come to understand, certainly in sitting down with these six re-recorded, re-arranged songs that I was so familiar with already, and had been for upwards of a decade, is that with these small lyrical changes, is that these notions, of life and living, can be broken down even further into the “life of a song,” and in turn, and what I am more fascinated with, is “how a song lives.”

There is an edge to one of the lines in the 2015 version of “Gray,” on Record of Life, when Goodkin arrives at this final verse. “We live a good life and work real hard,” he observed. “Been through some shit, and come real far.” A decade later, that edge has been softened, to “Been through our grief.” 

That is how a song lives, you see. Especially a song of such a personal nature, such as “Gray.” It continues to grow alongside the songwriter, and changes as they do. 

The line, though, that I am the most fascinated with though, arrives shortly after that, when Goodkin changes one word—changing “the dark,” as he had sung in the past, to “my dark.”

I’d do anything to keep her from my dark

It, again, is a subtle change. It doesn’t change the meaning exactly, though “the dark” implies something broader, or something outside of oneself. The darkness or the sorrows of the world at large. “My dark” is, of course, the inward turn. Personal. And revealing—the implication that there is something within you, or me, that would behoove us to prevent another person from seeing. 

Or knowing. 

And I am always looking to make connections to things that are not exactly there. I stretch things, sometimes, beyond their limits, as a means of trying to find my “way into” writing about an album as thoughtfully as I would like to.

My dark. 

That is where we end up. Isn’t it. There is a darkness. Despite the herculean efforts at hiding it. It is still there, often just underneath the surface. We try to keep it from those we care the most about. Uncertain to what extent to divulge, if anything at all. 

And for me, this is how a song lives. How it continues to grow or change, over time. For me, as a listener. Because that is the thing about contemporary popular music, isn’t it. You are always looking to catch little glimpses of yourself, or your lived experience, however unflattering or humbling it may be. 

And I did ask Goodkin about this change, because it was the most personally compelling to me. And I am, of course, always looking to make connections to things that are not exactly there. I stretch things, sometimes beyond their limits. I make too much of something that does not need much made out of it.

Goodkin explained he only sang the line once—in fact, he did all of the master vocal takes for the whole record once. “At the end of the second and final day of band tracking, Brian had me go into the main room to sing ‘clean rough’ takes of everything so we could see how the songs sounded with some more precise—but not final—vocals,” he told me. “I sang every song one time through, and those are the takes we used, unedited. We had nothing to edit in because I never sang them again. We just really liked the way they sounded and felt the matched the band takes, and I would have had a hard time getting back into that headspace.”

“So when I heard I changed that line, we were stuck with it.”

Goodkin admits he may have been changing the line over the years and perhaps not noticed it.

The dark. My dark. You spend the days, however many—months, sometimes entire years will go by. You’re treading water. Until it all becomes too much. And then everything feels more emergent than it ever did before. You keep people from your dark. The dark. In doing so, you wonder how much longer until you drown.

I am always looking to make these connections to things that are not exactly there. To stretch something beyond its limit for the sake of my “way into” a song. An album. But that’s the thing about pop music. How a song lives. How an album lives. When it is in the world, it meets us where we are. And if we’re lucky, as we grow, or change, it continues to grow, or change, alongside us. 

*

I had asked Goodkin how, out of the potential 18 songs to choose from, from the original Record of releases, he picked these six for this EP.

He told me he considered which ones could absorb full band production, as well as which songs he had originally tried to emulate a larger sound on within the original recordings but felt like he didn’t get to where he really wished for them to end up, because of his limitations. 

“I thought about lyrics that have aged with me, and either seemed like they had gotten more profound, or changed a little bit in meaning from when I wrote them,” he explained. 

Because the past is beating inside of us like a second heart, you see. And I think about that a lot. The way we carry our pasts with us. About time. About mortality. About points in our lives, now and where we were, a decade ago. The space and distance that forms between the two. How we change. How we grow. What we take with us. What we are asked to leave behind.

How we may still, in some regard, be the same. 

Joe Goodkin’s self-titled EP is invigorating, yes, but it is also reflective. An often striking and dynamic portrait that makes space for where Goodkin was a decade ago, but acknowledges the growth and changes and ambition of where he is now as a songwriter and artist. The arrangements here are robust, and incredibly impressive and meticulous, but like the original feeling of the Record of series, there is a very organic, in the moment feeling to how these six songs have been reimagined—the warmth from how they were written, and how they were recorded, truly carrying through as you listen.

Joe Goodkin is out now on digital platforms to stream or download, via Quell.