Echoes of Home and Fire: Gregory Alan Isakov’s “If I Go, I’m Goin” and “When The Trees All Burned”

Music Monday 8: The Gentle Apocalypse

There’s something remarkably intimate about the way Gregory Alan Isakov crafts his music—a delicate balance of vulnerability and strength that feels like a conversation with an old friend in a dimly lit room. His song “If I Go, I’m Goin” carries this quality in spades, and, like all the songs I’ve shared before, carries thematic resonance with When The Trees All Burned.

Houses That Hold More Than People

In Isakov’s song, the house becomes a character—it holds secrets, it talks, it creaks and moans. It’s not merely a structure but a vessel for memory and emotion. Similarly, in my book, physical spaces transcend their architectural purposes. Eden, with its protective dome and carefully curated homes, becomes more than shelter—it becomes a symbol of salvation, of beginning anew, of what we choose to preserve when everything else falls away.

The concept of “home” in both works isn’t limited to physical structures. Home becomes what we carry with us, what we choose to save, what we're willing to burn down to escape from. In When The Trees All Burned, the characters must reckon with what home truly means when the familiar world is gone—is it the physical spaces they inhabited, the relationships they forged, or something deeper within themselves?

The Gentle Apocalypse

Isakov’s music carries a soft apocalyptic tone—there’s fire, there’s leaving, there’s an underlying current of necessary destruction. His folk melodies flow like water over stones, deceptively gentle for lyrics that speak of burning things down. The guitar work feels like embers slowly consuming a photograph, methodical and inevitable.

This musical tone mirrors the apocalyptic themes in my novel. There’s something almost gentle about the way we approach destruction—not with bombastic fanfare but with quiet acceptance. The end of things becomes intimate, personal. In When The Trees All Burned, the apocalypse isn’t just global; it’s deeply personal for each character as they face what they’ve lost and what might remain.

Decision and Indecision

“I will go if you ask me to / I will stay if you dare.” These lines from Isakov capture a profound human truth about our ambivalence toward difficult choices. We often want someone else to make our decisions for us, especially when they involve leaving something behind.

The characters in my novel face similar crossroads. When the world is ending, what do you take with you? What do you leave behind? Who do you become when everything familiar burns away? The novel explores these questions through characters who must decide whether to go or stay, whether to fight or surrender, whether to hold on or let go.

Keepers of Memory

Perhaps the most striking parallel between the song and the novel is the idea of being “keepers.” In Isakov’s lyrics, the house becomes “quite the keeper” — a guardian of memories, of secrets, of the people who've lived within its walls.

In When The Trees All Burned, the concept of keeping—preserving, protecting, remembering—becomes central. What’s worth saving at the end of the world? Is it art, literature, technology? Is it relationships, connections, love? Is it hope itself? The novel will ask you to consider what you would put in your own fireproof safes if you knew flames were coming.

The Fire That Transforms

Fire appears in both works not just as a destructive force but as a transformative one. Isakov sings of going “on fire,” of anger taking him somewhere new. Fire becomes a vehicle, not just an end.

Similarly, in my novel, the fiery apocalypse isn’t merely the conclusion of one story but the kindling of another. Fire becomes the necessary catalyst for transformation, for rebirth. The characters who emerge from the ashes aren’t the same as those who entered the flames.

When I listen to “If I Go, I'm Goin” while reflecting on When The Trees All Burned, I' see how we both understand that endings are also beginnings, that houses are never just houses, and that sometimes we must burn to become something new. Isakov’s melody flows like a river carrying away the remnants of what was, his voice a comforting guide through destruction toward whatever waits on the other side.

In both works, the apocalypse feels less like an ending and more like a doorway—terrifying, yes, but also opening to something we couldn’t have reached any other way.