For the past six months, I have been releasing a new song and video on the full moon on Youtube and through this Substack. Loch Lomond (full moon video #1) has over 16,000 views and it climbs by 200 or so every day. Cool, huh? I don’t have a genius marketing strategy (obviously). I just love the full moon and want to get these songs out of my head and off my plate and into the world. So here we are again!
I wrote “Said Goodbye Too Many Times” in 1993, a couple years after moving to the desert of San Diego from the green forests of Victoria, BC. Last year we came across a cassette tape with a performance of the song from the Arthouse in Carlsbad, a night in 1994 with Jewel, Gregory Page, Mary Dolan, Joel Raphael and me on the bill. And a band called Nerfball. Who was Nerfball? I have no idea, but the others were my friends. My song “The Goodwill Store” is about the feelings of connection and goodwill and eclectic creativity in that San Diego folk music scene I was part of in the 1990s.
I found this link on the internet with some of our performances from that night (me and my band playing my song Ocean in the embedded file part 1).
I remember talking to Jewel at a break standing outside the door, laughing about our funky outfits. I was wearing Italian motorcycle boots my friend Joy Eden Harrison had given me and a short black dress from a thrift store. In my memory Jewel had a fringe vest on or maybe it was a coat. Pretty sure there was some fringe going on. She wore a necklace she told me was gifted to her from an Alaska indigenous elder in her life. She was beautiful. The place that night was packed, largely because of Jewel, who stunned every audience who heard her.
“I don’t know why they just put “Jewel” on there,” she said in an embarrassed tone, pointing to our names on the sign we stood beside. “My last name is Kilcher!” But simply “Jewel” is how the world soon came to know her.
Brian and I decided to record a new production of this song written long ago in the sunshine, remembering the rain and the people left behind. I had forgotten the song, but it felt compelling, and the raw feelings still resonate for me. I have a hard time letting go of people I love, and the sound and the lyrics reflect that tension and sadness. But the song also embraces the truth that connections we make with people never really die.
Twenty-nine years after that show in Carlsbad, I was fortunate to be able to include both Peter Pendras and Carl Dexter on this recording, both fantastic musicians who also were part of my band at that gig in 1994. Carl’s bass holds the song up, is seamless and nuanced. Peter didn’t play his guitar the way he played it in ’94, which I had been hoping for—but he played it even better, with completely different ear candy licks. I love the guitar break, which I have listened to and enjoyed many, many times as I made the video to go with the song. I also tried to reflect the intense musical energy of Peter’s repeated guitar licks with images in the video. Mostly hard cuts in this one.
The song also features a gorgeous vocal harmony from Peter’s son Trevor Pendras. When the Arthouse gig happened in 1994, Trevor was a little kid, probably home asleep in bed. Three decades later, Trevor is a fantastic musician just like his pop. He sings, writes, and plays guitar with The Country Lips, a rowdy Seattle country band out with a new record just last week (and here’s a new video too). I’ve never sung with Trever in real life because he tracks his parts remotely, but I totally love our voices together. “Said Goodbye Too Many Times” is the third song I’ve worked on with Trevor, and I hope to do more. You can hear his dishy vocals with mine on Corrine (full moon video number 4) and also Notch in Your Belt from a few years back.
And as with all my songs, “Said Goodbye Too Many Times” is engineered and mastered and co-produced by my partner in love and music, Brian Castillo.
The video-making is becoming another artform (read “obsession”) for me that I enjoy. I tried some new approaches with #6. This one is edgier than Full Moon Video #5, “I Wandered Ancient Countryside,” which is flowy and Celtic-y. It’s fun, challenging, and interesting to try to find a way to visually support each of these unique songs.
Thank you so much for all your private and public positive responses to my songs and videos. The songs are also released on Bandcamp and to Apple Music, Spotify, and other streaming services, sometimes a few days or a week later. Hope you enjoy this one too, and if you do, please leave me a heart and a comment! ❤️
So wonderful! I discovered you through the Icy Storm. You seem to reflect my heart these days.
Great song, Elizabeth! Just wrote a longer comment on YouTube. Thanks for sharing another full moon song with the world!