SPOTLIGHT: Good Deeds Get Answered on Joe Pug’s ‘No Place a Good Man Can Hide’ [VIDEO]

EDITOR’S NOTE: Joe Pug is No Depression‘s Spotlight artist for March 2024. Learn more about him and his new album, Sketch of a Promised Departure, in our interview, and look for more from Pug all month long.

There’s a lot of good on Joe Pug’s new album, Sketch of a Promised Departure.

There’s good music, of course, anchored by Pug’s top-notch songwriting. But “good” itself is something that seems to have been very much on his mind when creating these songs. “What Is Good Will Never Change” is an optimistic view of the power of the positive in this world, balanced by “Heroes Pass Us By,” in which he notes the human tendency to tear down those we’ve built up too high.

There’s a cautionary note, too, in “No Place a Good Man Can Hide” and its verses of vignettes about people following their moral compass.

“This song came about early in the process as my take on the old maxim ‘no good deed goes unpunished,’” Pug tells No Depression. “There’s a dual meaning in that we both seek to destroy people whose good example implores us to reflect on our own shortcomings and also someone’s goodness is apparent in the act of revealing themselves, even at the risk of their own safety.”

Hear Pug perform an acoustic version of “No Place a Good Man Can Hide” in this video for No Depression readers: