How Good It Is

How Good It Is


Latest Episodes

173: Wichita Lineman
January 18, 2024

By 1968, Glen Campbell had moved from session musician to a star in his own right. His single "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," written by Jimmy Webb, was a huge hit for him. So when Campbell decided he

172: A World War Two Christmas
December 25, 2023

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate! - Today we're looking at three Christmas songs that are born from the anxieties of World War Two. Two of the songs aren't direct references to the war itself, b

171: Save the Last Dance For Me
December 22, 2023

...before we were so rudely interrupted... - This is a song that I'm long-overdue in covering, if only because of the backstory it has. It's simultaneously heart-warming and heart-breaking. It's a lov

170: I Fought the Law
September 21, 2023

How many times now have I gone into the backstory with a song and learned that the person who wrote it says something akin to, "Yeah, I knocked that one off in about fifteen minutes." - Oftentimes the

169: Tiny Dancer
August 13, 2023

I don't often play favorites on this show; in fact there have been a couple of songs I genuinely disliked, but I covered them anyway because the story behind them was kind of interesting. And I think

168: Windy
August 01, 2023

The Association was a band that just kind of floundered for awhile. First in was in their early years when they were known as simply The Men, then, in 1966 after their first album did well, the second

167: Without You
July 06, 2023

One of my favorite titles for an album comes from The Animals. They did a bunch of albums up to 1969, then for a year or two there were a couple of compilation albums after they broke up. But in 197

166: Daydream Believer
April 10, 2023

I think that by now the Monkees have overcome their epithet of "Prefab Four," which I suppose was clever but not especially accurate. At least three of the Monkees were musicians who could act. I'd ar

165: If You Could Read My Mind (featuring Mike Messner)
February 18, 2023

You might remember a few episodes back when I teamed up with Mike Messner. He's the host of the Gordon Lightfoot appreciation podcast Carefree Highway Revisited. Well, Mike is back, and this time arou

164: Chinese Food on Christmas
December 31, 2022

To be honest, I didn't really expect both of the musicians I approached this year to be both very open to the idea of an interview and so generous with their time. But I'm definitely glad that they we