The Indigo Girls, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, say “thanks, y’all” after each song and at the end of each concert.
I figure it’s time I thanked them back.
Table of Contents (Click to Expand)
Thanks, Y’all, for “Watershed”
When I’m dreading making a decision, or wondering if I’ve made the right one, “Watershed” reminds me that:
Up on the watershed
Standing at the fork in the road
You can stand there and agonize
‘Til your agony’s your heaviest load
Your lyrics come to me in times of decision paralysis—unable to decide or act on something not just because I’m afraid of failure, but also that the outcome won’t be perfect.
Taking the first step might be uncomfortable, but it’s better than the misery of doing nothing.
The next part of the chorus comforts me when I’ve made a bad decision, regret not making a different decision, or compare the decisions I’ve made to those of others’. You sing:
You’ll never fly as the crow flies
Get used to a country mile
When you’re learning to face
The path at your pace
Every choice is worth your while
Thanks, Y’all, for the Word “Clean-Slated”
The best participial adjective formed by conversion from a noun phrase ever!
Thanks, Y’all, for Defying Classification
Genre is a construct made to be broken—and that’s what you’ve done over and over again.1
Contemporary folk music? You’re so much more!
Where would I even shelve your CDs if I ran a music store? With Bruce Springsteen or Joni Mitchell? With Patti Smith or Carole King? You’ve collaborated with the likes of Pink and Michael Stipe, and performed with symphony orchestras.
Thanks, Y’all, for “Galileo”
And then you had to bring up reincarnation over a couple of beers the other night …
Thanks, Y’all, for the Best Cover Song Ever
Amy, you own “Romeo and Juliet” just as Johnny Cash owns “Hurt.” You discovered and excavated the deep vein of pain lying far beneath the surface of the original song.
Thanks, Y’all, for ”Closer to Fine”
I spend four years prospering to the higher mind at the same college you did, but I never saw a doctor of philosophy with a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knees!
“Closer to Fine” is the first song of yours that I remember hearing. The idea that there may not be answers—clear ones, at least—to life’s biggest questions stays with me to this day.
There’s more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
Closer I am to fine
Thanks, Y’all, for Being Queer
I love “Born This Way” as much as the next gay man (we’re required to, by law) but anthems like that hardly represent the complications and contractions of the LGBTQ experience.
I’ve definitely felt the loneliness, longing, and feeling of being left out you capture wistfully “Country Radio.”
I wanna be that boy, I wanna be that girl
I wanna know what it’s like to fall in love
Like most of the rest of the world
But as far as these songs will take me is as far as I’ll go
I’m just a gay kid in a small town
Who loves country radio
Your “Romeo and Juliet” is sung to a woman. “Power of Two” is universal but hums with LGBTQ energy. And, Amy, I can’t imagine anyone but you nailing the right combination of swagger and fluster in this line from “Shame On You”:
The beautiful ladies walk right by
You know I never know what to say
In “It’s Alright,” you show quiet resolve:
I look at the fires of hatred
Burning up the bounty of this beautiful land
I know I’m small in a way, but I know I’m strong
And this line from “Trouble”? Chef’s kiss.
And when the clergy take a vote, all the gays will pay again
Yeah, ’cause there’s more than one kind of criminal white collar
Thanks, Y’all, for “Chickenman”
I was on the road to Austin
Met a man on the highway
He sold me junk and conversation
He was wise and dirty from the weather
I said darkness into darkness
All the carnage of my journeys
Makes it harder to be living
He said it’s a long road to be forgiven
Not sure where we’re going with this song, but I’m coming along for the ride.
Thanks, Y’all, for Rites of Passage
My desert island disc. If I have this, I don’t need seven more.
Thanks, Y’all, for the Most Honest Love Song Ever
I’m referring to “Power of Two,” of course:
Now we’re talking about a difficult thing
And your eyes are getting wet
Not a pretty image, but a real one. You continue:
But I took us for better and I took us for worse
Don’t you ever forget it
Now the steel bars between me and a promise
Suddenly bend with ease
The closer I’m bound in love to you
The closer I am to free
Thanks, Y’all, for Playing Red Rocks
Last week, you were in the right place at the right time. I’ve had a rough few weeks and seeing your show was a kind of catharsis. (I was the guy in the seventh row, wearing an Emory Football T-shirt2 and singing much too loudly. Remember?)
Thanks, Y’all, for Everything
And the best thing you’ve ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously
It’s only life after all, yeah