October 17, 2022

S.G. Goodman | So Those Teeth Marks? They're From a Rescuing?

by Cayla Rubin

Zegna jacket, top, and pants, and talent’s own glasses.

S.G. Goodman’s latest record, Teeth Marks, takes you on a journey of endless possibility. Rock’n’ roll riffs juxtapose moody, melancholic lyrics—a folk album through and through. The Kentucky-born singer-songwriter’s sophomore effort makes you feel alive and lost and everything in between. It makes you believe: if a broken heart feels this intense, then please, shatter mine to pieces.

Goodman is not concerned with how others feel when they listen to her earthy and raw tunes, only their potential imprint. “My job as a songwriter is just to hopefully write a song that people remember when they leave the room,” she says. This statement, like her music, is a breath of fresh air on a stale July afternoon. Within a society constantly consumed by how we make others feel, Goodman’s desire to only focus on herself is an act of pure selflessness.

We observe all of this while Goodman prepares for the first night of her tour in Santa Fe (which she pronounces with a strong, almost jarring, Southern accent)—she is the real deal. “I’m not an extrovert,” she explains, taking us through her pre-show ritual of burning Palo Santo and spending five minutes alone. Perhaps Goodman’s subdued disposition (at least until she takes the stage) stems from her rural upbringing, where the natural landscape and her experience as a farmer’s daughter became musical inspiration, or perhaps, it’s innate.

Despite not identifying as an extrovert, quintessential to Goodman’s psyche is storytelling. “I think traditionally, as a Southerner,” she considers, “I was raised around the best storytellers on earth.” Her first concert? Church service. “If you met me at a bar one night and we just got in conversation, I would probably end up telling you stories. It’s so ingrained in me, you know?” She paints a picture of befriending strangers at bars, entertaining and exploring. Goodman explains of Teeth Marks: “Love’s mark on you—either without it, or with it”—and this is the story told.

This storytelling begs the question: is love always worth the marks it leaves us with? Goodman begs to differ, “When you’re dealing with things like trauma,” she remarks, “how people love each other, how they were taught to be loved, it’s a really sad cycle.” Shedding light onto codependent behaviors and avoidant attachment styles, The artist shares, “There’s just a lot of horrible things that people do to each other that are because that was done to them, and love’s the same way. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that you weren’t loved in a way that’s healthy at some point in your life, and doing the work to change that.”

It could be said that what Goodman strives to change through her music is society’s way of socialization. Growing up in Western Kentucky, the epicenter of the opioid epidemic, the musician is familiar with loss and its processing. “We don’t give a shit about problems unless they affect us personally,” she says passionately. For example, of the album’s fith track, “If You Were Someone I Loved,” Goodman explains, “It’s a person telling someone that if I loved you, I’d treat you differently—I think people need to confront that about our nature. Why is that? You know?”

Growing up queer in Kentucky, Goodman is accustomed to being treated differently. “My straight friends who are singer-songwriters,” she says, “if they write an album about heartbreak, their sexuality is never put under a microscope.” Impassioned about the importance of representation, Goodman simultaneously strives to emphasize the importance of her holistic persona. When media junkets press her for her coming out story, or personal pieces of information that border on trauma porn, she reminds them simply and strongly, “I’m talking to you because I made a record. Not because I’m gay.”