What is Making Me Happy: “Golden Child”

Following the model of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour and, to a lesser extent, the Make Me Smart daily podcast, I want to remind myself that there are things that bring me joy. These posts are meant to be quick hits that identify and/or recommend things—usually artistic or cultural, sometimes culinary—that are making me happy in a given week. I am making this quick format a semi-regular Friday/Saturday feature.

This week: Amanda Anne Platt and the Honeycutters, “Golden Child”

Sometimes I just get a song or album stuck in my head. Recently, that song has been “Golden Child.”

To back up a little bit, I discovered The Honeycutters, an Asheville-based Americana band, on Spotify a few years ago when their songs started to appear on my algorithmically-derived playlists. Their 2015 album Me Oh My remains one of my favorites of recent years, particularly with the titular track, and the two songs “Jukebox” and “Lucky.” I just adore the voice of Amanda Anne Platt, who also writes their songs—since 2017, the band has officially (and deservedly) been Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters—and her lyrics swing between a restrained happiness and utter devastation in a way that I find very affecting.

This week I found myself listening to another of their albums, 2016’s On the Ropes, and was once again particularly moved by the song “Golden Child.” This is a sad, wistful tune about heartache that I find utterly devastating even as it is not particularly sad. It is a song of isolation, but one that makes peace with life.

Not hard to talk to, is she?
Yeah, she makes it easy
she looks like what you wanna hear
I used to need that from you
to make me feel like something special
standing back stage with a guitar and a beer

I also love how On the Ropes follows “Golden Child” with the upbeat ditty “The Handbook” about courtship.

In short, while I am a fan of basically everything that Amanda Anne Platt and the Honeycutters have put out, “Golden Child” has particularly been making me happy this week.

I've been a golden child
I've been a lonely country mile
and an am gospel choir crackling through the wires
don't you touch that dial