lifeblood: songs: backgrounds: fishtails

2015-05-18: listen to the indigo girls' song 'fishtails' off their upcoming album 'one lost day': exclusive, billboard:

ray says "fishtails" was the first song for one lost day to carry what would become the hamlin stamp on the album. "when i made a demo of 'fishtails,' i accidentally shifted the pitch and tempo, which also provided some insight into how i wanted to approach it," ray says. "jordan came back with this soundscape around the song that evoked all of the emotion of the words and really showed her vision and the production skills she had to pursue it. for me, this was the shoe-in and assured me we were on the right path in using her as a producer." listen to "fishtails," which billboard is exclusively premiering below.

the song itself, adds ray - who, like saliers, had a daughter between albums - is "about a lot of things, mostly about loss of innocence/coming of age, topics that are always compelling to me in the context of where i live and seeing the kids grow up around me."

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2015-06-18: indigo girls bring full band to asheville's orange peel, the asheville citizen-times:

as far as the songwriting on the new album, ray says "there's been no shortage of things to draw on." among them, "the rise of the black messiah" was inspired by the angola three case, one of whose inmates wrote her a letter from prison seven years ago, while the passing of her father in the same 10-day period in which her child was born influenced "happy in the sorrow key" and "fishtails."

"i started those songs years ago and picked them back up with new information from those new events," said ray, who writes separately from saliers. "after playing for so long together and not having a new record, it was good to dig back together and work on arrangements and refamiliarize ourselves."