S.G. Goodman Releases Haunting New Song ‘Red Bird Morning’

Kentucky-based singer-songwriter’s upcoming album ‘Old Time Feeling’ was co-produced by My Morning Jacket’s Jim James

[Rolling Stone]

ByJON FREEMAN 

Kentucky-based singer-songwriter S.G. Goodman has issued the new song “Red Bird Morning,” along with its accompanying video. Goodman’s upcoming album Old Time Feeling was co-produced by My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James and will be released July 17th via Verve Forecast.

A plaintive acoustic ballad, “Red Bird Morning” shows off the powerful clarity of Goodman’s voice as well as her skill for mixing narrative with impressionistic touches. “See me smoking on this cigarette/Same kind that took all our Nana’s breath/It’s the only flame that I have left/Will it be the death of me?” she sings, giving an account of her experience at the Standing Rock Protest in opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016 and 2017.

“The Standing Rock Protest was a prayer protest, and upon arriving to the camp, my job was to help thaw out wood for the sacred fire,” Goodman says. “I remember being prayed over, and praying in my own way for the first time in years.”

The song’s D.I.Y. video was filmed on an iPhone by Goodman and her friend Tim Johns after her original shoot was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Goodman appears in several shots, which are interspersed with scenes of rural beauty.

In March, Goodman was also named as a participant in Rolling Stone‘s second Women Shaping the Future event. She was originally set to join John Moreland’s tour as support, but the pandemic brought the trek to a halt early.