EDITOR’S NOTE: No Depression’s “Postcard From” series features dispatches from artists' daily lives on the road, in the studio, or anywhere in between. Our next installment comes from Belfast-based folk singer-songwriter Joshua Burnside, whose new album It's Not Going to be Okay was written in honor of his friend, Dean Jendoubi, who died of a drug overdose on August 17, 2025. The record, especially sparse for Burnside, highlights his visual lyrics, as well as the persistence and evolution of grief.
I have taken a photo of my armchair. This is the spot I sit in most, and it’s where I write most of my songs late at night, or sometimes very early in the morning. I keep a little nylon stringed guitar close at hand to noodle aimlessly. Humming tunes, waiting to find an idea that is worth exploring.
It’s also the last armchair my friend Dean sat in before he died just over a year ago. He was an extraordinary person and I miss him every day. A part of me wants to burn this chair in some sort of ritualistic way, in an attempt to move on from it all but then I think, "It’s just a chair, and it has served me well over the last decade." No, it doesn’t deserve that. I have more songs to write here, I think!
