A Year of Blind Spots: Indigo Girls

Indigo Girls

Indigo Girls

1989

I called these albums "blind spots" because I don't know anything about them, good or bad. All I can report is assumptions, prior to my week spent with the album. And for some reason that I can't quite put my finger on now, I assumed that I was going to have to be in defense mode today. There must have been someone, or someones, in my life who would or had scoffed at the idea of the Indigo Girls. I assume I had these experiences (maybe) because I grew up in a heteronormative household in the land of intolerance, Northeast Philadelphia. And here are the Indigo Girls, two outspoken and talented lesbian women who frequented Lilith Fair. I figured there were going to be naysayers and that I was going to have to be like, "Actually, I've listened to this album 40 times this week and I can definitively say now that it is excellent and that the haters can fuck off."

But I dunno, I didn't really see much of that online, at least not in present day. Maybe time has softened unwarranted criticisms, or maybe they were strawmen to begin with. Either way, I am very warm toward Indigo Girls, and I saw nothing but warmth on the otherwise cold unfeeling depths of the internet.

Probably because "Closer to Fine" is an all-timer of a song. This was definitely one of those situations were I hit play for the first time and was like OH SHIT IT'S THIS SONG. Not that it was omnipresent in my youth or anything, but it's a song that was at the very least in the recesses of my brain, sharp enough that I could pull it up this week and feel a little nostalgia toward it anyway. Man, what a fucking tune. It's one of those songs that hits on two levels: musically, with those catchy jangly guitars and engaging harmonies; and philosophically, speaking to the idea that the world is large and mysterious and that life is a lot more comfortable when you accept that fact.

Perhaps the rest of the album might fall short of that immediate high in many cases, but not here. It's saved by the fiery passion of Amy Ray's vocals. You can really feel the heat, how she strains to wring every ounce of emotion out of each word that she sings. My favorite is "Blood and Fire," how every time she comes back to the lyric "from ten-thousand miles away," she pauses for longer, and her voices cracks even further. It's just so fucking powerful, which is not an adjective I usually use for folk music like this.

Indigo Girls made me think more than anything about how universal the magic of music is. Because when you think about it, I knew about as much about the life experience of the Indigo Girls as I did Nas last week. And yet here we are, in the same position, having listened to an excellent album and appreciating a new adventure and a new way of thinking that I wasn't familiar with. Two women from the early '90s with guitars and amazing voices got me there. If there are any haters, fuck 'em. I can't imagine any more that there are any left, though.