Goodbye My Friend

03/28/22 • 20 min

Alarms, reminders, notifications. Church bells and a space shuttle countdown. Hurry up and read me! You're late! This song started with a concept and collecting the sounds that expressed it. Electronic instruments suggested the beat and melody, the lyrics came after that.
Telling the story of how the song came together, Andy digs deep into the recording session to reveal the component parts before playing the rough mix he took to the mix sessions in Calgary. There is a tritone warning—and maybe check you have no Zoom meetings scheduled when you listen!
Throughout, Andy talks about experimentation and surprising yourself. Some of the tracks he mentions are Born Slippy, Mother, Mr Blue Sky and Sound and Vision. And from his own albums This is Not a Television Show and Thank You.
If you know the lastest album This garden is only temporary and have been following the podcast series exploring the writing and recording of the songs, you'll have noticed that Goodbye My Friend is the first track he's looked at out of sequence. This is because he has a special guest coming in next week.
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Andy's albums are available on Bandcamp or www.andywhite.com

Andy's albums are available on Bandcamp or www.andywhite.com

Previous Episode

Take Me Back Home

Most songs take their cue from visual imagery or emotions. Sometimes hearing and touch are mentioned. Take Me Back Home was started when Andy rolled down the window of his out-of-action car one hot Melbourne night and smelt French pancakes cooking in the bar across the road. In this week's episode he discusses how this took him back to another time and place. To teenage photographs, punk guitar and his piano-playing grandmother. Tom Waits and Marcel Proust are mentioned.
You'll hear excerpts from the master recordings, Amy the goat, and the episode ends with a different mix of Take Me Back Home from the one on Andy's new album This garden is only temporary.
We're seven songs in, with only a couple to go. If you're new to the podcast - welcome! Catch up when you can, and please share and subscribe. If you do so, the next episode will appear as if by magic in your podcast feed. Thanks everyone!

Andy's albums are available on Bandcamp or www.andywhite.com

Next Episode

Design

This week a special guest drops in to the podcast, freelance designer Sebastian White. Sebastian has designed Andy's albums since 2014, and after chatting about granola for a bit, father and son discuss the process of conceptualising and realising the artwork for This garden is only temporary. They find the process is remarkably similar to that involved in writing and recording the songs, on the way talking about collecting ideas, balance, conceptual art, favourite album covers and psychological stepping stones. There is at least one Tale from a Rock'n'roll Childhood and Amy the goat contributes to the conversation several times.
Visual artists they discuss are Mark Rothko and Gerhard Richter. The interview with Courtney Barnett is here and the album covers they mention are The Next Day, Dark Side of the Moon, Electric Warrior, Out There, Yeezus and The Life of Pablo.
If you haven't got a physical copy of the album you can see the artwork on Bandcamp (click the small icons) or Andy's Instagram.
Please share and subscribe and thanks for your support.