I oddly don’t have a lot of memories around writing Goodbye To Good Times. According to my demo vault, I began writing it in July 2020, which surprises me now, as I thought I had written it much later - but the evidence is all there.
I do remember, and though it was written not even halfway into completing the album, that I knew it was going to be the albums closer. Like all great baseball teams, every album also needs a confident closer. A strong song brave enough to consolidate the albums themes and to say farewell before walking into the sunset. I remembering feeling immediately that Goodbye to Good Times would be brave enough for the job.
I also remember that it was originally written as a finger picked song influenced by the picking pattern of one of favorite John Fahey songs Sligo River Blues. I later left this picking pattern for the hiccup-y strum that it became, which you’ll notice across these three demos.
The first demo is from July 2020 and is me only moments after stumbling into writing the song, the themes and lyrics hanging in the balance, being picked outta the air. I remember wanting to channel a talk-singing narration similar to Is That All There Is by Peggy Lee.
The second recording, made only days later, shows the song is starting to come together - the ideas beginning to solidify. I remember this early iteration fondly - where I sang Brittany Murphy and River Phoenixs names but later changed them to Otis Redding and Diane Lane. I’ve always missed their names in the song, and theres not a time that I sing this song where I don’t hear their names inside my head while doing so.
Lastly, almost a year later in February 2021, is me playing the song on my twelve string while sitting at the piano. By this point I have the song dialed in and am just having fun with it before taking it into the studio, twinkling on the piano when not playing the guitar.
THIS POST nearly completes my posts of demos from This Is A Photograph, a project I started over a year ago and the inspiration for me starting a Substack at all. I will do one more post in which I will post all ten demos all in one place, so they’re easy to access as a whole.
THANK YOU all for taking this journey with me. It’s been wonderful to have a platform to share all of my demos for This Is A Photograph. I truly love demos and recognize them as one of the most mysterious and magical parts of the process of songwriting - and it means a lot to me to dig into my own, and to have people that want to listen.
So, thank you!
And as bittersweet as it may be that this albums demos are now coming to a close…
it does of course mean that I will now move onto onto the demos for More Photographs, and beyond :)
Stay tuned xoxo