When people say they don’t like folk music, I point them straight in the direction of the Indigo Girls. Anybody who doesn’t like folk will instantly be persuaded to at least like folk-rock when they hear these two gals. A duo made up of Emily Saliers and Amy Ray, they’ve been a staple of my mother’s music collection and our local radio station my whole life.
With eleven studio albums to their name, not to mention live and compilation albums, it was nearly impossible for me to pick ten songs that I love the most. But if you want to get introduced to the Indigo Girls, these are the ten I’d give you!
10. Become You
Apart from their gorgeous melodies and guitar work, the Indigo Girls have done some great work with accordion accompaniment in their songs. “Become You,” off the 2002 album of the same name, is a great example of how they worked accordion into their folk-rock style.
9. Love’s Recovery
This song comes off their first album after being signed to Epic Records. I love this song because it shows off Emily’s smoky voice so beautifully. Their delicate folky guitar is also beautifully offset by background piano. I love the Indigo Girls when they are their badass, rocking-out selves, but I will always have a soft spot for the haunting romantic strains of this song.
8. All That We Let In
How could you not love those complex harmonies Emily picks out on her guitar? My favourite parts of this song are Emily’s soft crooning with Amy singing the chorus underneath. There’s just something about the lyrics of this song-the simple accepting attitude towards loss and pain and coping, and the straightforwardness of love.
7. Moment of Forgiveness
We’ve all had those moments, after a big fight, when we suddenly wanted to forgive everything. This song is plain and a little hardy, with simple guitar and straightforward lyrics. Somehow it has that element of reluctance that you always have when you call someone to apologize, and yet stays sweet and longing.
6. Tether
I’ve always had a love for this song. It’s a bit of a departure from many of the love songs the Indigo Girls do, and has a distinctly political feel to it. It also has a much harder, sharper edge to it. I think their social commentary is summed up in these lyrics:
“I kicked up the dirt, and I said to my neighbor
‘We keep making it worse, we keep getting it wrong’
He tucked in his shirt, he stood a little bit straighter,
He said ‘We need a few less words dear, we need a few more guns.'”
5. I Believe in Love
This song has a little bit of a personal meaning to me. It’s about the difficulty and pain of maintaining a relationship with someone you love passionately but maybe aren’t completely compatible with. But it still has that straightforward clarity that Amy and Emily bring to everything they do.
4. Least Complicated
“The hardest to learn was the least complicated.” Isn’t that true about everything in life? This song has some of the most beautiful, poignantly simple lyrics of all their songs. I especially love the line, “It’s awful quiet here since love fell asleep.”
3. Power of Two
Simple and sweet. Love lets you chase away the monsters in the closet. This song always lets me have a good, quiet cry when I need one.
2. Galileo
This must be one of the first Indigo Girls songs I ever heard. “Galileo” was the band’s first top ten modern rock track, coming in at number 10 when it was released in 1992. As a rockin’ song about personal discovery and aiming for enlightenment, it’s a fitting tribute to the great astronomer.
1. Closer to Fine
When I want to introduce people to the Indigo Girls, I play this song for them. Many times I get the response, “ohhh…this is the Indigo Girls?” There’s something incredibly upbeat and hopeful about this song, and it’s a beautiful, optimistic exploration of what the point of it all is. “It’s only life, after all.”
No matter what song they play, the Indigo Girls have a way of being incredibly direct, insightful, and creative-not to mention incredibly musically talented! Their complex harmonies combined with their gorgeous lyrics absolutely cements them as one of my favourite bands of all time. Give these songs a try-I promise you won’t regret it.
