Songs: Ohia – Farewell Transmission

The late Jason Molina released many great songs in the many projects he was involved with, but perhaps none stand out more than the monumental “Farewell Transmission”, from 2003’s The Magnolia Electric Co. One of the only things more epic than “Farewell Transmission” is the story of how it was recorded. For this particular recording session, Jason Molina called in musicians who were not scheduled to be involved, to play instruments that were not scheduled to be included. About 12 musicians were in the same room for “Farewell Transmission” and recorded the song completely live in the studio, improvised and unrehearsed. In an interview, Molina once claimed that he “showed ‘em the chord progression, they had no idea when it would end, and we just cut it.” Molina also claimed that Steve Albini opened and closed the door to the recording room as required, to help the recording achieve the desired volume.

The studio version of “Farewell Transmission” features many amazing moments throughout, especially that electric opening riff and the convincing delivery of “Mama, here comes midnight with the dead moon in its jaws.” The song even finishes with Molina dictating to his band to “listen”, and eventually, everyone in the room stopped playing at the same, coordinated (and perfect) moment. “Farewell Transmission” was recorded in a single day and even more impressively, the entire album was record in three days.

Many years after the song’s release on The Magnolia Electric Co, Jason Molina described the recording session as “heroic” which might seem arrogant to some, but was in fact an accurate assessment of the session. In theory, the odds were very much stacked against the studio version of “Farewell Transmission”, but as music history as repeatedly shown, often the human element of music can produce incredible, unrepeatable results.

This post was written by Scott