lifeblood: songs: backgrounds: everything in its own time

1997-09: no boundaries - indigos girls cut loose, acoustic guitar:

jpr: are there a lot of open tunings on the new record?

ar: yeah. we're always in different tunings from each other, too. i don't know how that happens.

es: what's that song where you're in d-minor tuning [d a d f a d]?

ar: 'everything in its own time,' but i'm actually capoed on the fourth fret, so it would be f# minor. i love the open d-minor tuning a lot. it's a great tuning, so i'll just capo and use it for different songs. i discovered it when we were doing a cover of a vic chestnutt song called 'free of hope' and i wanted to play it on slide, so i did it in open d minor and played it on electric guitar.

jpr: emily, how are you tuned on 'everything in its own time?'

es: i'm capoed on the second fret and playing sort of a minor chords. i'm in standard tuning except for the b string, which is tuned down to a.

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1997-05-31: hey kind friend, creative loafing:

the title shaming of the sun comes from a tunica indian legend, one of many native american - and south american - creation myths that focus on the sun, its powers and its life-giving properties. on the record, the indigo girls have used the symbol over and over: it's the light that shines on the windows in "shame on you," it's the drink of life in "get out the map," its absence defines "leeds," it dies in olympia in "hey kind friend."

in most legends, the power of the sun always wins the day - or at least part of it. the sun is the bully and the lover at the same time. you could say the same of music, the "languageless connection" emily urges us to hold fast to in "everything in its own time." it may be one of the few mythological elements we have left today, that larger-than-life force that has the power to push back the darkness. and the indigo girls, like a couple of coyotes, have tricked it into doing exactly that.

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amy ray quote from 1997-12: indigo girls - amy ray, curve:

"i also love 'everything in its own time' because it's so different. the writing reminds me of old emily, when we first met. its a certain kind of ballad - melodramatic, with hispanic-sounding chord changes. she used to write more like that in the old days, when we were first playing together."