In the ancient gardening practice of planting by the signs, sowing, pruning, and other activities are determined by the phases of the moon and the signs of the zodiac—earth and water signs are set around planting, while fire and air suggest weeding and harvesting. Still used in some form or another, including following the lunar cycle in some biodynamic viticulture, the practice also stretches outside of gardening and into daily life—from haircuts to child weaning—and was one Kentucky singer and songwriter S.G. Goodman rediscovered while reading the Foxfire books from the early 1970s then enforced while writing her third album Planting by the Signs.
“I bombarded myself with every bit of written material, interviews and anything I could get my hands on around the belief system of planting by the signs,” Goodman tells American Songwriter. “I just trusted that if I fully immerse myself in it, that it would come out in my work.”
Goodman’s Planting was also centered around the notion of passing down stories and sayings over generations, while decompressing from a heavy touring schedule and coming to terms with loss and grief in 2023.
A year after the released of her 2022 album Teeth Marks, Goodman lost her beloved companion and dog Howard, followed by the shocking death of a father figure in her life, longtime mentor Mike Harmon. That year, Goodman also experiences reconciliation when she reunited with co-producer and guitarist Matthew Rowan, who worked with her 2020 debut Old Time Feeling and Teeth Marks. The two had become estranged over the years but reconnected after Harmon died.
On Planting by the Signs, Goodman is trying to make sense of the past two years, and put everything into some planetary perspective—cultivating songs rooted in planting, pruning, building, harvest—while chronicling an emotionally upending period in her life, first opening on an ode to nature, “Satellite,” and “Fire Sign,” documenting the exhaustion and mental strain of being on the road for two years, a burnout which Goodman says left her questioning her “purpose and choices” before she found the strength to start something new.
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Goodman faces more demons on “I Can See the Devil” and “Snapping Turtle,” the repentance of a disturbing childhood event, through “Michael Told Me,” a raw tribute to Harmon that is the oldest track on the album. Originally written in 2021, “Michael Told Me” was never meant to be a lament, but transitioned into one after his passing. Years earlier, Goodman first mentioned on her Old Time Feeling track “Red Bird Morning.”
Other songs emerge within the wonderment of nature, and the moon, in “Solitaire,”and self-love and another. return to the planting by signs guide on “I’m in Love”—the moon is right now for cutting my hair / I’m checking out Walmart collections of underwear.
On Planting by the Signs Goodman captures the soul of Appalachia, from its roots and growths to more personal circle of life stories of endings and rebirths. “Nature’s Child,” featuring Bonnie “Prince” Billy, follows the natural elements of Goodman’s rural upbringing on an farm, a soulful musing laced in fixation, perhaps with someone or just nature itself.
Few words are needed and delivered in the dreamier longing of “Heat Lightning” before planting around love on the title track, featuring Rowan. The album closes on another acknowledgement of loss with the near-nine-minute “Heaven Song,” which mention her dog Howard—My little dog, he died in the night / He left out for heaven before the sun’s first light—and delves into her own mortality and back to love and finding it in the unlikeliest of places.
Also co-produced with Drew Vandenberg, who previously worked on Teeth Marks, and recorded at the Nutt House in Sheffield, Alabama, Planting by the Signs was a concept Goodman initially thought up prior to Harmon’s death, as a pushback to the more prevalent digitized lives, and one that made more sense after his loss.
Harmon, who let Goodman and her band practice in an old onset hut behind his house, would often check on her while she was on tour. Always the fatherly figure, he even told her to put chains on her tour van tires during snow storms days before he died at age 69 in March of 2023.
For Goodman, Planting by the Signs was also proof that she could write again. For years, she says she had trouble completing a full thought and doubted she could write another song.
“I feel like a lot of songwriters experience this, after you’ve written a song, you think ‘I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that again,’” shares Goodman. “It’s delving through the doubts of ‘Have I lost my ability?’ Then, to be able to actually churn out something where I felt like I had said everything I needed to say was a really big moment for me.”
Since releasing her debut, Kudzu, with her former band the Savage Radley, through breaking into her solo career, Goodman admits she’s always had periods of self-doubt when writing and decided to explore more co-writing on Planting by the Signs, per the suggestion of songwriter Lori McKenna. “It’s an interesting departure from writing my own songs to being a co-writer, and I really realize from trying to co-write, how much I love the art of and the craftsmanship behind writing songs, because it’s like a puzzle,” says Goodman, who co-wrote “Nature’s Child” with Tyler Ladd.
Goodman first called McKenna for advice on finding her way back as a writer after feeling stuck.
“Some of the things she said to me in that phone call were really pivotal for me, making a shift back into my own writing,” shares Goodman. McKenna also suggested they co-write a song together. Though the two have yet to collaborate, the correspondence lit the fire Goodman needed to light up the album.
“I was living in survival mode and scarcity thinking after releasing two albums that weren’t able to fully see the light of day,” says Goodman of releasing her debut and writing Teeth Marks during the pandemic then voraciously touring the moment she could again without much space in between. “In that time, I felt like I wasn’t living, really. Touring is a very specific experience in life, and it doesn’t leave a lot of room for relationship building, other than who you’re around. I’m there in person, but not spiritually … and I was having a hard time putting on the artist hat and writing my own material.”
Goodman also co-wrote the opening “Satellite” with Rowan, a song inspired by a magician she met during a festival in Charleston, South Carolina, who explained the correlation between a 52-deck of cards and nature; there are 52 weeks in a year and the four suits link to the different seasons. “There’s a lot of lore and beliefs about the symbolism of cards in regards to nature, and it’s a perfect depiction of life cycles,” says Goodman. “I immediately thought of my song ‘Solitaire,’ and I was like ‘That’s the link.’ That is why that song is what it is.”
In touring and making Planting by the Signs, Goodman says she has realized the implications of burnout and the important of taking time off the road. “It was crucial for me to go back home,” she says, “go to the store and drive around in my car and be able to feel like a human.”
Luckily, the astrological fabric of Planting by the Signs gave Goodman the necessary structure to tell these stories. After wrapping up her tour, Goodman was “stationary” during the winter, for the first time in years, allowing her to naturally fall into the cycle of planting by the signs. “The moon and star placement in that time was a very dormant moment,” she says. “It’s a time of rest and reprieve and the seeds that I’ve been planting were able to do their thing underground. Eventually all those themes and images from planting by the signs started popping up very naturally in my songwriting.”
Much like the natural flow of Planting by the Signs, Goodman believes the next album or new material will come when in its time. “I’m going to be able to write another album,” she says, “and when it’s ready to reveal itself to me, it will.”
Photo: Ryan Hartley
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