The recording project of Minneapolis duo Maren Day and Morgan Kavanagh, bad posture club write folk songs to explore ideas of home, family and memory within the context of the queer experience. With nothing but a guitar, banjo and the occasional pump organ supporting their voices, the pair probe the often abrasive interface between soft human emotion and rigid social structures with a simple, hushed sound. A classic style used to conjure a calm haven in which to reflect, but also as a way to reclaim agency for voices too often denied the chance to communicate the full scope of their experience.
Today we have the pleasure of sharing ‘My Good My Sweet My Bright’, the latest single from bad posture club. Recorded at home on a 4 track cassette recorder, the song is an intimate lullaby, a slow croon for warm dreams performed with the tender affection of genuine acquaintance. Like a well-worn blanket pulled up in all its comforting familiarity. And with good reason. Because far from being a new song, ‘My Good My Sweet My Bright’ was in fact first written in the thirties by Kavanagh’s great grandmother Elsie Waters Kavanagh (pictured below) and subsequently passed through the family from generation to generation as a precious heirloom.
The bad posture club version feels like not only a continuation of this process of inheritance, but also a way to capture the beauty inherent within such a thing. A way in which to celebrate the continuity between the past and the present, to cherish that which might otherwise appear lost, and ultimately draw comfort from the knowledge that we are part of something larger and more lasting, no matter how perilous any present moment might feel.
Cover art by Eliza Weber