The Dream Café
67 Front StreetIf art does indeed imitate life, the Good Lovelies have lived lives worth singing about - in all their beautiful and wondrous complexity.
Where there is heartache, and heartbreak, endings and beginnings, there is joy, beauty and overcoming the slings and arrows of life through the power of friendship, love, and family. It is this richness of life, and the wide-ranging spectrum of emotions that surface from moment to moment that permeates the much anticipated and long-awaited new album from one of Canada’s most accomplished and harmonious trios, Good Lovelies.
We Will Never Be the Same is Good Lovelies’ first collection of original material since their 2018 release Shapeshifters and, in terms of instrumentation and musical tone, hearkens back to their acoustic, rootsy beginnings nearly two decades ago.
Lyrically, the songs created by the ensemble of Kerri Ough, Sue Passmore, and Caroline Marie Brooks, forthrightly mine the complex feelings experienced by women who have reached a point in life where they have come to ponder some of the big questions.
The product of their artistic deliberations, We Will Never Be the Same strikes a tone of hopefulness, steadfastness, and perseverance, even when enduring moments of tribulation and even despair.
“What I like about the writing on this record is that it can be coming from a really personal situation in one of our lives, but the experience is universal enough that everyone listening to it can make it whatever they need it to be,” said Passmore.
Towards the end of 2021, after an extended time apart, Good Lovelies came together in person for a very fruitful writing retreat in Nova Scotia, in a cottage owned by the legendary broadcaster/author Stuart McLean.
Compositions at various stages of completion were brought forward by the long-time friends and collaborators adding their own talents and observations and works to one another’s offerings. Working with the producer team of Joshua Van Tassel and Christine Bougie (who both performed on the album as well), completed songs were finessed and finalized at Toronto’s Union Sound in the fall of 2022.
“We were in the studio being touched by each other’s music and you had a sense when a song was really hitting with everybody and what was going forward naturally. It was one of the most powerful writing experiences we’ve ever had,” said Ough.
“We’re all songwriters and these new songs reflect how we’re experiencing life now. In some ways when I listen back to the songs, the production actually reminds me of some of our earlier albums. So, while we are evolving and reflecting on our current lives, sonically I think we’re taking a page from our early days,” said Brooks.
“In comparing it with the records we had done before, I feel like this was one of our most collaborative writing experiences. This was the first time we went away together – we retreated for a full week for the sole purpose of throwing everything on the table. Even if one of us brought in a song that was close to fully formed, it seemed like we were all [including Bougie and Van Tassel] involved as a team,” added Passmore.
Add in 17 years of touring, partners, families, and the vagaries of the music business, and 2023 presents a trio who have grown and evolved as individual humans, and as a collective creative entity, which is reflected in the subject matter of the songs on We Will Never Be the Same.
At the forefront of this are the tracks Young at Heart, Tip to Toe, and Keep Moving, each of which exemplifies the complex individual stories of each band member, with the cohesive sinews connecting them together being how Brooks, Ough and Passmore can identify with those stories, and create a unified message through their combined harmonies.
“Young at Heart is a mantra of sorts – a meditation as well as an affirmation. It was inspired by the women on my mom’s side of the family who are very complex, layered women, but also very youthful. As a parent myself now, and as an adult, it’s about finding your way to joy intentionally. It’s saying yes to playing with your kids, even though sometimes I just feel like saying “I’m so tired”. I have realized if I work at it, it can actually be so much fun and makes me feel like a younger person,” Brooks said.
We Will Never Be the Same is both a return to a more elemental, acoustic-based musical platform reaching back to the early days of Good Lovelies, but also an assertive and immersive emotional experience crafted by three songwriters who bring their own real-life stories in all their dynamism and messy complexity to the fore.
It is a testament not only to their artistry, but also their humanity, and is an album that will continue to endear this beloved group to
Tue., Oct. 24, 2023 8:00 p.m. - 10:30 p.m.
The Dream Café
67 Front Street
There's no need to print your tickets, we will greet you at the door with our guest list for the show.
Doors open 6pm unless otherwise stated.
Kitchen is open from 6-9pm.
Show starts at 8pm, please arrive by 7:30pm to have time to get settled.
Enjoy the show!
The Dream Café
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