INDIGO GIRLS, EDGE,
Indigo Girls ‘Look Long’ at the past, keep sound fresh
Amy Ray and Emily Saliers split their time on new Indigo Girls album “Look Long” between past and present. Both deliver tracks exploring the experience of growing up gay in the South; both sing protest songs that take on the White House, gun violence, global famine and a list of American sins. Despite the pain — and the two have loaded this LP with pain — Ray finds hope even in this dark moment.
“I am a tirelessly optimistic person who is also really realistic about where we are at and the complexities of people, of racism, homophobia, sexism,” Ray said. “The hope in the song ‘Muster’ (which addresses violence at home and abroad) comes from me saying that I really think we have a lot in common with people that we stand opposite from on a lot of issues.”
“We wonder why these kids marching in the street are so disconnected from our political system, well, they’re disconnected because they ask us over and over again to try to make change and we don’t,” she added. “But from me there’s hope coming through in other songs. I think of ‘Favorite Flavor’ where I end singing ‘Let your light shine.’”
This mixing of optimism and despair, personal and political, is textbook Indigo Girls. These themes come together on two very different tracks — Ray’s “(expletive) Kickin’” and Saliers’ “Country Radio.”
Ray’s tune, which opens the album, immediately sounds new. Instead of expected acoustic guitars, “(expletive) Kickin’” begins with a slippery, funky electro groove. Over this, Ray explores being nostalgic for rural pleasures and conflicting values.
“The song is about me going to this lake in Georgia on the weekends that was very formative for me, for my discovery of myself and the underbelly of the South,” Ray said. “It’s about the joys of that time, riding dirt bikes and horses, but also about me being a tomboy and that intersecting with the cultural norms of what I was expected to be.”
Saliers’ “Country Radio” has a similar nuance, a similar dissection of dichotomy, but the arrangement and production feel classically Indigo Girls (see “Rites of Passage”). The song is a love letter to sweet, syrupy country music and a lament that there’s no place for gay love in the genre.
“I love country music, so many songs so well written, so well sung, but as I try to fit my own life experiences into them there’s a barrier,” Saliers said. “(Listening to country radio) I started feeling this wistfulness, this otherness. I put that into a character in a small town sitting there, closing their eyes, and trying to fit into these songs.” These two songs typify what’s great about the Indigo Girls now: an ability to sound exactly as expected and completely fresh, a talent for putting yesterday in context today. But they don’t sum up “Long Look.”
After three decades of fighting for social, economic and environmental justice (and writing some sweet love songs and heartbreakers), the Indigo Girls keep the flame burning on this diverse, brave set.
“Having written songs for all these years, the greatest challenge is not repeating myself, wanting to work outside my box while remaining authentic,” Saliers said. “But I feel quite inspired to write these days.”
“A record is always a labor of love and we’re always exhausted by that in a good way,” Ray added. “(Working on ‘Look Long’) was a pleasure. Working with so many great people, working to get it right, the labor of ‘Look Long’ just became a great experience.”