JFH News: Singer-Songwriter Leslie Jordan Helps Tell The Unspoken Parts Of Her Late Grandfather’s Story With New Single, "Elegy"

Singer-Songwriter Leslie Jordan Helps Tell The Unspoken Parts Of Her Late Grandfather’s Story With New Single, "Elegy"

The Agonist, Jordan’s Americana concept album inspired by the lost writings of her grandfather and produced by Kenneth Pattingale (The Milk Carton Kids) is out on April 25th

NEWS SOURCE: IVPR
March 21, 2025

Nashville, TN - March 21, 2025 - “I think It says a lot about love and loss and what to do with grief when there’s nowhere to place it,” says singer-songwriter Leslie Jordan of her heartbreakingly beautiful single, “Elegy.” A clear highlight of Jordan’s upcoming collection of songs inspired directly by her late grandfather Robert S. Gott’s journal of writing and poetry, “Elegy” finds the former member of Grammy-Nominated duo All Sons & Daughters studying a simple but poignant verse believed to be written about Gott’s brother Dick:

In all this incredible tortoise world

Nothing was so unmistakable

As my brother’s handwriting

“This said a few things to me,” remembers Jordan who co-wrote “Elegy” with Luke Laird and Sandra McCracken. “The title reveals that this must have been his attempt to lament the death of his brother. And the last line reveals the intimacy they must have shared at one point in their life.” Gott didn’t write much about his brother. “He seemed to feel a lot of conflict around their relationship,” Jordan says, reading into the few mentions of Dick in Gott’s journal. “He resented the fact that his parents dressed them alike and treated them the same, stating he didn’t know elder brothers usually got the preferential treatment.” It probably didn’t help that Dick was married to the woman Gott loved. But when Dick died tragically in a car accident in his forties, it affected Gott in profound ways, his lack of processing of the loss in his journal is evidence of that. Still, Jordan took what was there, and along with Laird and McCracken, sat down to tell this heartbreaking chapter of her grandfather’s story.

“I told [McCracken and Laird] I wanted a ballad, something that gave us the chance to feel the grief of loss and the gravity of missing the chance to love someone while they’re alive,” remembers Jordan. The trio sorted through the story and the lyrics and wound up with the stop-you-in-your-tracks song Jordan premiered today. Driven by a haunting piano played by Tyler Chester, the track tells her grandfather’s story in a way that would’ve made the sojourning poet proud while maybe saying aloud some of his long-kept feelings about his brother, the chorus laying those out as plain as day:

“Ten thousand things fill up my mind

Ten thousand words I didn’t write

Ten thousand ways to say goodbye

So why can’t I?