Good Morning
Barnyard
Albüm · Alternative · 2021 · Polyvinyl Records
“Like most of our records, it's all time and place,” Good Morning’s Liam Parsons tells Apple Music. “We sort of make music just for ourselves, really—it’s a pretty selfish endeavor. The albums are just souvenirs for us, things we have to look back on.” In the case of Barnyard, his decidedly DIY Melbourne rock duo’s fourth and finest LP to date, the time and place was Chicago in November 2019, at Wilco’s famed studio The Loft. For five days, the two worked alongside in-house engineer Tom Schick on bringing to life a stack of demos they’d banked over the course of years. When they left The Loft, the album wasn’t finished—so they resolved to come back the following year to add some overdubs and, as Parsons says, “tighten up some screws.” The pandemic scuttled their plan, but the record didn’t suffer for it. “It was kind of like a blessing, just being like, ‘This record is done,’” Stefan Blair says. “And obviously it's scrappy, but that's probably more in line with our band than if we’d gone back and kept working on it. And honestly now, I don't really know what I would've done. Good to call it sometimes, even if it's not really your choice. It’s a complete snapshot of what happened in those five days of our life.” Here Blair and Parsons talk through each track on Barnyard.
“Too Young To Quit”
Liam Parsons: “We wanted to finish the record with ‘Country,’ which is the most upbeat one, the sort of diametric opposite of ‘Too Young to Quit.’ So this song felt like, maybe not logical, but an interesting way to start. Like a counterpoint—and from there, we could figure out how you get to ‘Country.’ Thematically, it's pretty of a piece with the rest of the record, and I think there's like a really interesting fade into synths at the end. A weird sort of almost ambient thing to start the record off with just felt like a good introduction.”
“Depends on What I Know”
Stefan Blair: “It draws from a very unpleasant personal situation. And I suppose I’d hoped that it was vague enough—or that the words were open enough—that people could relate it to their own situations. For me, when I listen to a breakup song or a breakup record or something where someone's had a problem with someone else and they've written directly about that, the music loses the mystery and the magic someway when I know the story behind it.”
“Wahlberg”
LP: “I guess the song is about family and about having children, in a sense. ‘Wahlberg’ just seemed like a funny name. It looks good on paper. But no, this song has nothing to do with Mark and Donnie, really, other than in the sense that they're siblings.”
“Yng_Shldn”
LP: “It’s also just a very evocative name, like ‘Wahlberg.’ Divorced from the context of the show, that's just very strong. But ‘Young Sheldon’ was literally the name of the demo. I've never seen the show, but I have this weird obsession with it. It's just very funny that it exists.”
“Matthew Newton”
LP: “We didn't really instinctually realize we were making that choice at the time, to sequence the three pop-culture-referencing songs back to back. But this is a very specific Australian thing, the story of Matthew Newton, which is awful. And there's no sympathy or holding someone up to be a kind of tragic figure. The song’s really got nothing to do with him—he’s just one example of someone in my mind. It's about nepotism and the weird showbiz dynasty, B-grade and C-grade celebrities in Australia.”
“Tree”
SB: “I had to set up for a week at this place in Melbourne called the Moreland Band Hall, and I would just go there and just try and hang out and write songs. I feel like it's a song that was written very specifically for someone, but the specificity of it, I don't particularly feel like sharing around. To me, though, it does feel like a song that I would typically write. For some reason, I’m not sure why.”
“I’ve Been Waiting”
SB: “That one's been around for ages. Originally it was a ballad, on piano, but Liam and I have done a few versions over the years. I really wanted it to be big—the one on the album has multiple drum kits and multiple bass guitars. We’d held off on actually recording it, because I’d wanted to wait until we had somewhere that we knew we could get it to sound bigger than we were capable of doing on our own, production-wise. It’s very much an anxious teenager who wrote those lyrics. And they haven't really changed since the original incarnation of the song.”
“Burning”
LP: “‘Burning’ came from an instrumental that Stefan had been working on in our friend's piano store in Melbourne. I’d had the ‘Yng_Shldn’ demo that I'd made in my bedroom. We just swapped them with one another, went home and each wrote lyrics to one another’s song. I guess at the time it was pretty obvious that we were headed for a pretty disastrous summer in Australia. So it was just dealing with that anxiety, especially being in Chicago at the time, away from home and just thinking about what's going on, on the other side of the world, the worsening nature of climate change. All the feelings that come along with that anxiety and the anger at our government’s lack of direction and ability to seemingly do anything at all.”
“Big Wig/Small Dog”
SB: “I demoed that one at home in bed, which was nice. It was just drum machine—pretty minimal, though we fleshed it out with an actual drum kit and it's a bit more thrashed now. It was a meditation on the idea of generational wealth. And not forming any argument for anything in particular, but just ruminating on how I was feeling about it and dealing with my own conflicted thoughts of what it means to just have things. I suppose I've grown up in a very comfortable way. But for some reason I can't stop my own seething jealousy when I see people who grow up with more or have more than I do.”
“Never Enough”
LP: “That one is one of the only ones that we wrote together. I think it was me just sitting there yelling chords at Stefan. It's quite weird. It's a bit of an outlier. I like it but I don't love it. I think the idea is there, but I don't think we nailed it. I wish I'd like redone the vocal—it’s a bit pitchy. And I just wish we’d maybe gotten noisier—I like the bit in the middle of the song where it kind of sounds like it's breaking in half.”
“Green Skies”
SB: “It’s about a conversation that I had with my dad, who had been in hospital and had some opioid medication and loved the experience. It just made me reflect on how I deal with things and utilize substances to deal with things. It freaked me out because my dad's always been this very sober-minded, level presence. And some part of me thought, ‘Wow, now that he's had this experience, he's going to love it. Dad's going to go off the rails.’ That was never going to happen, but some part of me was like, ‘What if he does? What if he's just like me?’”
“Country”
LP: “It was written in my bedroom, in my share house, sitting around. I was just looping things, building layers of synths and drum machines and guitars. It’s where I was at that point in time—a little bit raw, a bit beaten, thinking about the past and the future and how the two are linked and where I am in the middle of all of that. It's actually aspirational in a way. There’s this line about having a boyfriend and having a psych. At the time I didn't have a boyfriend and I didn't see a psych. It was just where I imagined myself in a year's time—and that came true, actually. You can change if you want.”
“Too Young To Quit”
Liam Parsons: “We wanted to finish the record with ‘Country,’ which is the most upbeat one, the sort of diametric opposite of ‘Too Young to Quit.’ So this song felt like, maybe not logical, but an interesting way to start. Like a counterpoint—and from there, we could figure out how you get to ‘Country.’ Thematically, it's pretty of a piece with the rest of the record, and I think there's like a really interesting fade into synths at the end. A weird sort of almost ambient thing to start the record off with just felt like a good introduction.”
“Depends on What I Know”
Stefan Blair: “It draws from a very unpleasant personal situation. And I suppose I’d hoped that it was vague enough—or that the words were open enough—that people could relate it to their own situations. For me, when I listen to a breakup song or a breakup record or something where someone's had a problem with someone else and they've written directly about that, the music loses the mystery and the magic someway when I know the story behind it.”
“Wahlberg”
LP: “I guess the song is about family and about having children, in a sense. ‘Wahlberg’ just seemed like a funny name. It looks good on paper. But no, this song has nothing to do with Mark and Donnie, really, other than in the sense that they're siblings.”
“Yng_Shldn”
LP: “It’s also just a very evocative name, like ‘Wahlberg.’ Divorced from the context of the show, that's just very strong. But ‘Young Sheldon’ was literally the name of the demo. I've never seen the show, but I have this weird obsession with it. It's just very funny that it exists.”
“Matthew Newton”
LP: “We didn't really instinctually realize we were making that choice at the time, to sequence the three pop-culture-referencing songs back to back. But this is a very specific Australian thing, the story of Matthew Newton, which is awful. And there's no sympathy or holding someone up to be a kind of tragic figure. The song’s really got nothing to do with him—he’s just one example of someone in my mind. It's about nepotism and the weird showbiz dynasty, B-grade and C-grade celebrities in Australia.”
“Tree”
SB: “I had to set up for a week at this place in Melbourne called the Moreland Band Hall, and I would just go there and just try and hang out and write songs. I feel like it's a song that was written very specifically for someone, but the specificity of it, I don't particularly feel like sharing around. To me, though, it does feel like a song that I would typically write. For some reason, I’m not sure why.”
“I’ve Been Waiting”
SB: “That one's been around for ages. Originally it was a ballad, on piano, but Liam and I have done a few versions over the years. I really wanted it to be big—the one on the album has multiple drum kits and multiple bass guitars. We’d held off on actually recording it, because I’d wanted to wait until we had somewhere that we knew we could get it to sound bigger than we were capable of doing on our own, production-wise. It’s very much an anxious teenager who wrote those lyrics. And they haven't really changed since the original incarnation of the song.”
“Burning”
LP: “‘Burning’ came from an instrumental that Stefan had been working on in our friend's piano store in Melbourne. I’d had the ‘Yng_Shldn’ demo that I'd made in my bedroom. We just swapped them with one another, went home and each wrote lyrics to one another’s song. I guess at the time it was pretty obvious that we were headed for a pretty disastrous summer in Australia. So it was just dealing with that anxiety, especially being in Chicago at the time, away from home and just thinking about what's going on, on the other side of the world, the worsening nature of climate change. All the feelings that come along with that anxiety and the anger at our government’s lack of direction and ability to seemingly do anything at all.”
“Big Wig/Small Dog”
SB: “I demoed that one at home in bed, which was nice. It was just drum machine—pretty minimal, though we fleshed it out with an actual drum kit and it's a bit more thrashed now. It was a meditation on the idea of generational wealth. And not forming any argument for anything in particular, but just ruminating on how I was feeling about it and dealing with my own conflicted thoughts of what it means to just have things. I suppose I've grown up in a very comfortable way. But for some reason I can't stop my own seething jealousy when I see people who grow up with more or have more than I do.”
“Never Enough”
LP: “That one is one of the only ones that we wrote together. I think it was me just sitting there yelling chords at Stefan. It's quite weird. It's a bit of an outlier. I like it but I don't love it. I think the idea is there, but I don't think we nailed it. I wish I'd like redone the vocal—it’s a bit pitchy. And I just wish we’d maybe gotten noisier—I like the bit in the middle of the song where it kind of sounds like it's breaking in half.”
“Green Skies”
SB: “It’s about a conversation that I had with my dad, who had been in hospital and had some opioid medication and loved the experience. It just made me reflect on how I deal with things and utilize substances to deal with things. It freaked me out because my dad's always been this very sober-minded, level presence. And some part of me thought, ‘Wow, now that he's had this experience, he's going to love it. Dad's going to go off the rails.’ That was never going to happen, but some part of me was like, ‘What if he does? What if he's just like me?’”
“Country”
LP: “It was written in my bedroom, in my share house, sitting around. I was just looping things, building layers of synths and drum machines and guitars. It’s where I was at that point in time—a little bit raw, a bit beaten, thinking about the past and the future and how the two are linked and where I am in the middle of all of that. It's actually aspirational in a way. There’s this line about having a boyfriend and having a psych. At the time I didn't have a boyfriend and I didn't see a psych. It was just where I imagined myself in a year's time—and that came true, actually. You can change if you want.”
Barnyard
Good Morning
“Like most of our records, it's all time and place,” Good Morning’s Liam Parsons tells Apple Music. “We sort of make music just for ourselves, really—it’s a pretty selfish endeavor. The albums are just souvenirs for us, things we have to look back on.” In the case of Barnyard, his decidedly DIY Melbourne rock duo’s fourth and finest LP to date, the time and place was Chicago in November 2019, at Wilco’s famed studio The Loft. For five days, the two worked alongside in-house engineer Tom Schick on bringing to life a stack of demos they’d banked over the course of years. When they left The Loft, the album wasn’t finished—so they resolved to come back the following year to add some overdubs and, as Parsons says, “tighten up some screws.” The pandemic scuttled their plan, but the record didn’t suffer for it. “It was kind of like a blessing, just being like, ‘This record is done,’” Stefan Blair says. “And obviously it's scrappy, but that's probably more in line with our band than if we’d gone back and kept working on it. And honestly now, I don't really know what I would've done. Good to call it sometimes, even if it's not really your choice. It’s a complete snapshot of what happened in those five days of our life.” Here Blair and Parsons talk through each track on Barnyard.
“Too Young To Quit”
Liam Parsons: “We wanted to finish the record with ‘Country,’ which is the most upbeat one, the sort of diametric opposite of ‘Too Young to Quit.’ So this song felt like, maybe not logical, but an interesting way to start. Like a counterpoint—and from there, we could figure out how you get to ‘Country.’ Thematically, it's pretty of a piece with the rest of the record, and I think there's like a really interesting fade into synths at the end. A weird sort of almost ambient thing to start the record off with just felt like a good introduction.”
“Depends on What I Know”
Stefan Blair: “It draws from a very unpleasant personal situation. And I suppose I’d hoped that it was vague enough—or that the words were open enough—that people could relate it to their own situations. For me, when I listen to a breakup song or a breakup record or something where someone's had a problem with someone else and they've written directly about that, the music loses the mystery and the magic someway when I know the story behind it.”
“Wahlberg”
LP: “I guess the song is about family and about having children, in a sense. ‘Wahlberg’ just seemed like a funny name. It looks good on paper. But no, this song has nothing to do with Mark and Donnie, really, other than in the sense that they're siblings.”
“Yng_Shldn”
LP: “It’s also just a very evocative name, like ‘Wahlberg.’ Divorced from the context of the show, that's just very strong. But ‘Young Sheldon’ was literally the name of the demo. I've never seen the show, but I have this weird obsession with it. It's just very funny that it exists.”
“Matthew Newton”
LP: “We didn't really instinctually realize we were making that choice at the time, to sequence the three pop-culture-referencing songs back to back. But this is a very specific Australian thing, the story of Matthew Newton, which is awful. And there's no sympathy or holding someone up to be a kind of tragic figure. The song’s really got nothing to do with him—he’s just one example of someone in my mind. It's about nepotism and the weird showbiz dynasty, B-grade and C-grade celebrities in Australia.”
“Tree”
SB: “I had to set up for a week at this place in Melbourne called the Moreland Band Hall, and I would just go there and just try and hang out and write songs. I feel like it's a song that was written very specifically for someone, but the specificity of it, I don't particularly feel like sharing around. To me, though, it does feel like a song that I would typically write. For some reason, I’m not sure why.”
“I’ve Been Waiting”
SB: “That one's been around for ages. Originally it was a ballad, on piano, but Liam and I have done a few versions over the years. I really wanted it to be big—the one on the album has multiple drum kits and multiple bass guitars. We’d held off on actually recording it, because I’d wanted to wait until we had somewhere that we knew we could get it to sound bigger than we were capable of doing on our own, production-wise. It’s very much an anxious teenager who wrote those lyrics. And they haven't really changed since the original incarnation of the song.”
“Burning”
LP: “‘Burning’ came from an instrumental that Stefan had been working on in our friend's piano store in Melbourne. I’d had the ‘Yng_Shldn’ demo that I'd made in my bedroom. We just swapped them with one another, went home and each wrote lyrics to one another’s song. I guess at the time it was pretty obvious that we were headed for a pretty disastrous summer in Australia. So it was just dealing with that anxiety, especially being in Chicago at the time, away from home and just thinking about what's going on, on the other side of the world, the worsening nature of climate change. All the feelings that come along with that anxiety and the anger at our government’s lack of direction and ability to seemingly do anything at all.”
“Big Wig/Small Dog”
SB: “I demoed that one at home in bed, which was nice. It was just drum machine—pretty minimal, though we fleshed it out with an actual drum kit and it's a bit more thrashed now. It was a meditation on the idea of generational wealth. And not forming any argument for anything in particular, but just ruminating on how I was feeling about it and dealing with my own conflicted thoughts of what it means to just have things. I suppose I've grown up in a very comfortable way. But for some reason I can't stop my own seething jealousy when I see people who grow up with more or have more than I do.”
“Never Enough”
LP: “That one is one of the only ones that we wrote together. I think it was me just sitting there yelling chords at Stefan. It's quite weird. It's a bit of an outlier. I like it but I don't love it. I think the idea is there, but I don't think we nailed it. I wish I'd like redone the vocal—it’s a bit pitchy. And I just wish we’d maybe gotten noisier—I like the bit in the middle of the song where it kind of sounds like it's breaking in half.”
“Green Skies”
SB: “It’s about a conversation that I had with my dad, who had been in hospital and had some opioid medication and loved the experience. It just made me reflect on how I deal with things and utilize substances to deal with things. It freaked me out because my dad's always been this very sober-minded, level presence. And some part of me thought, ‘Wow, now that he's had this experience, he's going to love it. Dad's going to go off the rails.’ That was never going to happen, but some part of me was like, ‘What if he does? What if he's just like me?’”
“Country”
LP: “It was written in my bedroom, in my share house, sitting around. I was just looping things, building layers of synths and drum machines and guitars. It’s where I was at that point in time—a little bit raw, a bit beaten, thinking about the past and the future and how the two are linked and where I am in the middle of all of that. It's actually aspirational in a way. There’s this line about having a boyfriend and having a psych. At the time I didn't have a boyfriend and I didn't see a psych. It was just where I imagined myself in a year's time—and that came true, actually. You can change if you want.”
“Too Young To Quit”
Liam Parsons: “We wanted to finish the record with ‘Country,’ which is the most upbeat one, the sort of diametric opposite of ‘Too Young to Quit.’ So this song felt like, maybe not logical, but an interesting way to start. Like a counterpoint—and from there, we could figure out how you get to ‘Country.’ Thematically, it's pretty of a piece with the rest of the record, and I think there's like a really interesting fade into synths at the end. A weird sort of almost ambient thing to start the record off with just felt like a good introduction.”
“Depends on What I Know”
Stefan Blair: “It draws from a very unpleasant personal situation. And I suppose I’d hoped that it was vague enough—or that the words were open enough—that people could relate it to their own situations. For me, when I listen to a breakup song or a breakup record or something where someone's had a problem with someone else and they've written directly about that, the music loses the mystery and the magic someway when I know the story behind it.”
“Wahlberg”
LP: “I guess the song is about family and about having children, in a sense. ‘Wahlberg’ just seemed like a funny name. It looks good on paper. But no, this song has nothing to do with Mark and Donnie, really, other than in the sense that they're siblings.”
“Yng_Shldn”
LP: “It’s also just a very evocative name, like ‘Wahlberg.’ Divorced from the context of the show, that's just very strong. But ‘Young Sheldon’ was literally the name of the demo. I've never seen the show, but I have this weird obsession with it. It's just very funny that it exists.”
“Matthew Newton”
LP: “We didn't really instinctually realize we were making that choice at the time, to sequence the three pop-culture-referencing songs back to back. But this is a very specific Australian thing, the story of Matthew Newton, which is awful. And there's no sympathy or holding someone up to be a kind of tragic figure. The song’s really got nothing to do with him—he’s just one example of someone in my mind. It's about nepotism and the weird showbiz dynasty, B-grade and C-grade celebrities in Australia.”
“Tree”
SB: “I had to set up for a week at this place in Melbourne called the Moreland Band Hall, and I would just go there and just try and hang out and write songs. I feel like it's a song that was written very specifically for someone, but the specificity of it, I don't particularly feel like sharing around. To me, though, it does feel like a song that I would typically write. For some reason, I’m not sure why.”
“I’ve Been Waiting”
SB: “That one's been around for ages. Originally it was a ballad, on piano, but Liam and I have done a few versions over the years. I really wanted it to be big—the one on the album has multiple drum kits and multiple bass guitars. We’d held off on actually recording it, because I’d wanted to wait until we had somewhere that we knew we could get it to sound bigger than we were capable of doing on our own, production-wise. It’s very much an anxious teenager who wrote those lyrics. And they haven't really changed since the original incarnation of the song.”
“Burning”
LP: “‘Burning’ came from an instrumental that Stefan had been working on in our friend's piano store in Melbourne. I’d had the ‘Yng_Shldn’ demo that I'd made in my bedroom. We just swapped them with one another, went home and each wrote lyrics to one another’s song. I guess at the time it was pretty obvious that we were headed for a pretty disastrous summer in Australia. So it was just dealing with that anxiety, especially being in Chicago at the time, away from home and just thinking about what's going on, on the other side of the world, the worsening nature of climate change. All the feelings that come along with that anxiety and the anger at our government’s lack of direction and ability to seemingly do anything at all.”
“Big Wig/Small Dog”
SB: “I demoed that one at home in bed, which was nice. It was just drum machine—pretty minimal, though we fleshed it out with an actual drum kit and it's a bit more thrashed now. It was a meditation on the idea of generational wealth. And not forming any argument for anything in particular, but just ruminating on how I was feeling about it and dealing with my own conflicted thoughts of what it means to just have things. I suppose I've grown up in a very comfortable way. But for some reason I can't stop my own seething jealousy when I see people who grow up with more or have more than I do.”
“Never Enough”
LP: “That one is one of the only ones that we wrote together. I think it was me just sitting there yelling chords at Stefan. It's quite weird. It's a bit of an outlier. I like it but I don't love it. I think the idea is there, but I don't think we nailed it. I wish I'd like redone the vocal—it’s a bit pitchy. And I just wish we’d maybe gotten noisier—I like the bit in the middle of the song where it kind of sounds like it's breaking in half.”
“Green Skies”
SB: “It’s about a conversation that I had with my dad, who had been in hospital and had some opioid medication and loved the experience. It just made me reflect on how I deal with things and utilize substances to deal with things. It freaked me out because my dad's always been this very sober-minded, level presence. And some part of me thought, ‘Wow, now that he's had this experience, he's going to love it. Dad's going to go off the rails.’ That was never going to happen, but some part of me was like, ‘What if he does? What if he's just like me?’”
“Country”
LP: “It was written in my bedroom, in my share house, sitting around. I was just looping things, building layers of synths and drum machines and guitars. It’s where I was at that point in time—a little bit raw, a bit beaten, thinking about the past and the future and how the two are linked and where I am in the middle of all of that. It's actually aspirational in a way. There’s this line about having a boyfriend and having a psych. At the time I didn't have a boyfriend and I didn't see a psych. It was just where I imagined myself in a year's time—and that came true, actually. You can change if you want.”
