lifeblood: songs: backgrounds: fugitive

1994-02-18: unknown source:

amy ray: so i have my tounge on my cheek. "fugitive" is - it's kind of a love song, but it's also, you know, it's very abstract. it's me, the struggle within myself and the struggle with someone else to create commitment in a world of this - of the music industry, which is really kind of screwy. and the ideas of invading privacy and - it's about freedom, really, and about the ability to be free. you can be free no matter what, you know. and "touch me fall" is about the same thing [laughs]- "touch me fall" is about the industry. no, "touch me fall" is sort of a journey from - it deals with ego and true - true love, and, you know, and purity, and then it switches over to - into a mode of kind of the - it's fatalistic. it goes from this real pure type thing into a - a sort of a chaotic existence. they're very abstract songs. i don't know what i'm writing about half the time when i'm writing, so i can't really - i can't, like, pin it down like emily can.

emily saliers: because mine are simple.

amy ray: no, that's not it. mine are just - i just let it out while i'm writing, so i don't know what it's about.

...

interviewer: okay. sorry. can we go back again, just to cover myself, and let's talk about a little bit more specifically about the songs that we're going to hear today. can we just go through that one more time and just tell the title of the song and a little bit about it and what you - maybe people that are on that track or what you thought about or when you did it, when you wrote it. just so i can use those as highways when you hear the songs.

amy ray: okay. i wrote "touch me fall" actually, we were staying at a resort in florida [laughing] - i was taking a nature walk. i started the song on that, actually, on that walk. i was - it was after dark supposed to be there, and i started this song. and it was a real pure thing, and then i finished it after being really worn out from last year. it became a- completely different song. it got very chaotic. and so i finished it at a different point in my life. and so that's what it is, it's like a journey from one part of my life to another. and "fugitive" is - i don't know how to explain it again. [laughter]

interviewer: you did it the first time.

amy ray: did i do okay the first time. i don't know when i wrote - oh, you know, one thing about fugitive is that i did write - i wrote a lot from that song to the band, because when we were on tour with jane scarpentoni and scarlett rivera and jerry marotta and sara lee, that's one song that we jammed on every sound check for awhile. and i really wrote a lot of the words during soundcheck, in that atmosphere. and i finished it in florida, again, on the beach.

emily saliers: we always want to be in florida.

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1994-xx-xx: swamp ophelia, epic press release:

"that's when you're having a relationship and your relationship is invaded because of what your career is doing. at the same time, you're reaping positive things from your career, you're alive and healthy..."

"it's just saying that we have to respect the way things are moving, even if we don't understand sometimes. maybe there's something bigger in the works that we'll understand later. the song is more about wrestling with yourself than it is about being famous - we're not that famous!"

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1995-03: closest to fine, queensland pride:

"my music permeates my life in so many different ways," amy said. "i have so many other things going on, and my relationship is with a musician too. that song was really about how you deal with being in the same career within your relationship, where you're both dealing with the same privacy issues."

"my priorities have changed a lot and i think fugitive is a recognition of that. i used to be extremely career-oriented. everything was indigo girls, 24 hours a day, and a lot of it had to do with ego. now my priorities are to my relationship and my family. i love music but we've gotten better at setting boundaries and having parameters. i've also moved to a place and no-one knows where i live so i don't have to deal with privacy invasion and things like that."

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

"i've been gender-specific on records before, in 'chickenman' i'm very specific - i went looking for a girl. and then in 'fugitive' it's obvious i'm talking about a girl."