The tear stained, endlessly peppy, endearingly sad sonic pages of "Strong & Good", by Halifax sibling duo Overnight (Carla & Lynette Gillis), emotionally creeps up on you, ultimately causing scattered goose bumps on your skin and find you blinking away watery eyes. As someone who has written about indie music for over 16 years, my M.O. is always the same, I try to listen to new songs cold without reading press kit info. I especially don't want to know the seeds of the story, I want the sonics, the performance from top to bottom and inside out to pull emotions out of me all by themselves. "Strong & Good" begins upbeat and affable and in fact I felt a kind of 80's new wave thing happening. The hooky guitar lick made me think of The Go Go's or Book of Love but as the Gillis sister's vocals began washing over me, their vocal countenance more personal / thoughtful / wistful / seriousness as the connective tissue with a slight patina of melancholia piqued my attention as I tend to adore serious and sad songs, either a failing or a blessing, I haven't figured out which.
Another thing I love is songs that don't follow the regular rules of songwriting and "Strong & Good" does not, in my mind, have the verse chorus verse chorus bridge chorus thing (who am I kidding, modern songs rarely have bridges). It instead moves in this lovely heartfelt storytelling way, the structure linear with that aforementioned guitar hook serves as the repetitive connective tissue that a chorus might and then the chorus is stacked as a powerfully impactful passage which make the emotional punches more surprising with one more short verse prog as the outro.
While the chorus lyrics might slightly change from chorus a to b- it goes like this:
“I don’t typically have anything clear in mind when I sit down to write lyrics, but this one turned out to be about grief,” shares Carla Gillis (guitars, piano, lead vocals). “It was really hard to lose our dad, and it was really hard to leave Toronto and our community. The song came out of grief, but it’s also about the impulse to not be entrenched in it all the time. To shake it off and keep going. Rhythmically, it has a forward propulsion to it. Melodically, it’s fairly upbeat. To me, it’s shaped as much by resilience as sadness.”]
"give me the sun / a warm glow / give me a cat that I can hold / give me a path / a quiet road / give me somewhere clear to go / give me my mother's jokes / father's hands / smell of the / wood stove / trees and sky / songs I love / ways to hide / any time..."
AND I have to tell you that the combination of the sister's emotional vocal presence and the vocal melodies started stripping away my armor and when they sang "give me my mother's jokes / father's hands / etc", I don't know, I became keenly emotional and even a bit weepy. I lost both my parents a long, long time ago and this song definitely touched me deeply squeezing pressure points. It's not only the lyrics but the ramping up intensity of the singing that got to me. This song is like an emotional time bomb and when it explodes you feel it. Like the song says about feeling degrees of pain born out of both happy and painful memories, "(I) try to shake it off / loss is a second skin / not today / it's not getting in..." but it always does, right (?), it always does get in.
Love this song.
LINER NOTES (excerpted / bracketed):
[Written in the wake of their father’s sudden passing and a difficult move home from Toronto during the pandemic, the song captures both the weight of grief and the forward motion of resilience.
“I don’t typically have anything clear in mind when I sit down to write lyrics, but this one turned out to be about grief,” shares Carla Gillis (guitars, piano, lead vocals). “It was really hard to lose our dad, and it was really hard to leave Toronto and our community. The song came out of grief, but it’s also about the impulse to not be entrenched in it all the time. To shake it off and keep going. Rhythmically, it has a forward propulsion to it. Melodically, it’s fairly upbeat. To me, it’s shaped as much by resilience as sadness.”]
AND
[The single’s title comes from a simple lyric – “coffee tastes strong and good” – though for the Gillis sisters, the phrase also reflects their father’s character.
Recording the song proved challenging, as the duo struggled to land on a guitar arrangement that felt right. “Everything kept sounding frustratingly dorky,” Carla recalls. “Eventually (producer) Charles (Austin) suggested having an acoustic guitar play quietly underneath everything, and it was the glue we needed.”]
“Strong & Good,” is the new single from Overnight's upcoming sophomore album, Put Me In Your Light (out November 7th via Label Obscura).
-Robb Donker Curtius
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Halifax sibling duo Overnight (Carla & Lynette Gillis) return with “Strong & Good,” the tender and reflective new single from their upcoming sophomore album, Put Me In Your Light (out November 7th via Label Obscura).
“Strong & Good” is one of the most emotional tracks on Put Me In Your Light, often bringing Carla to tears mid-performance. Yet, despite its heavy subject matter, the song embodies Overnight’s ability to find light within loss – a theme that runs throughout their new album.
Produced by Charles Austin (Superfriendz, Surprise Pink) and featuring contributions from Michael Small (Meligrove Band, Loviet) and Jason Starnes (Bells Clanging), Put Me In Your Light offers 10 songs of big riffs, tender harmonies, and reflective optimism. While grief and memory shape the album, its energy leans buoyant and hopeful, echoing Overnight’s journey through hardship and renewal.
Overnight, indie rock, strong storytelling aesthetic, Halifax sibling duo Carla & Lynette Gillis, emo, sophomore album "Put Me In Your Light", via Label Obscura, "Strong & Good" (Official Video), love and loss,
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