lifeblood: songs: backgrounds: joy train

2021-04-05: amy ray rides southbound on the 'joy train', country queer:

q: "joy train," in particular, is interesting to me because, initially, i found it hard to ascertain whose viewpoint it was written from. and so i actually thought that it might have been written from an assassins point of view, feeling guilty about what they'd done to an activist and being confronted by haunting memories of historical figures. since then, it's come much clearer.

the intention is saying not to spend your life dwelling on all the things that are holding you back. and dwelling on the cage-so to speak-of your life. it's saying, look at these people that have fought against incredible things... physical beatings, emotional and spiritual brutality from other people, and yet they're still able to have joy in their hearts and sing songs and celebrate. and the power of the civil rights movement was so much about the spirituality of carrying on and having joy in the face of so much danger and oppression. so, i think about medgar evers and martin luther king jr. and rosa parks and harriet tubman... and present day people like stacey abrams, you know. and people that take so much shit for the color of their skin, i think about that a lot. and then i think, like, how can i be complaining about my life, or the things that hold me back? i need to get on the joy train and celebrate, and just strive to be effective, and do the work that i want to do, but do it with joy, and positivity, and try to make change.

q: the song is full of striking images...

first, i'm in the car, driving my kid around trying to get her to fall asleep, she's screaming, it's hot outside... i'm driving around for 30 minutes, committing major pollution crimes. and i'm stuck behind a truck full of chickens that are dying in their little cages and their feathers are blowing past us. that's how it starts out. then i'm talking to a sheriff in some town outside of memphis after a show. and he's talking about all the things he's done with the people i'm with, these two older folks, and they're discussing things about their lives and stuff. and i'm thinking about how they seem so friendly on the front, but there's something underneath it, because of all i know about the brutality of the criminal justice system.

and then i'm thinking about my kid, saying 'you're so innocent right now, just have the best dreams you can possibly have and enjoy yourself' the same way that i want to say that to everybody else. don't dwell on the cage while life flies by. your life is happening right now. if you spend time complaining and bitching, and talking about things that you're not even trying to change, then you're wasting it. and wasting your life, when you have all these people around you that have done so much with their lives in the face of so much crap... to me, that's a terrible thing to do.

in my head, i'm always looking at all the people that have fought against such bad circumstances. and they still try! whenever i'm feeling depressed or really down, i just get inspired by other people and their willingness to have joy. i saw a revival outside in jackson, mississippi, there were literally people riding horses around the perimeter, guarding it. and it was beautiful thing, the singing and praying... and i was just struck by it, and it reminded me of the fact that you can still have joy even when you're going through really bad things.

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2023-02-23 live in the volume studio - lightning 100 - nashville, tennessee (amy ray)

amy ray: i sort of combined a couple of different experiences. one was when i was, used to go drive my kid around. she's nine now but when she was really young and you know how you go in a car and you drive your kid around so they'll go to sleep because they won't sleep. so i was thinking about that and making notes on that one time. and then the other thing is i was in jackson, mississippi and ran across a revival outside um in a park and there were uh men on horses circling the revival kind of guarding things and it was just a really cool moment, you know. it was a black church and it was like a lot of singing and joy, joyfulness. and i, it made me start thinking about the ghost of all of our civil rights leaders. and i always feel them kinda on my shoulder reminding me to stay positive in the face of any kind of, you know, negativity and always try to, you know, work for the best and work for society and stuff like that. so it's kind of about that, you know, get on the joy train, you know, kind of adjust your attitude.

dj: yeah, that's beautiful. i love that. well, would you mind playing it for us here?

amy ray: no, we don't mind. and this is, uh we got jeff fielder over here on guitar in, in radioland. jeff fielder is in the band and matt smith is playing dobro. he's also our pedal steel player. so he's crossing over today for this one. oh no, you play dobro on this song on the record, right? yeah, we recorded this in nashville actually at sound emporium. those folks over there are awesome.

dj: yeah, that's a beautiful studio.

amy ray: yeah, yeah, juanita really helped us out and skyler chuckery did our assistant engineer and bobby tis from tedeschi trucks was our mixer and engineer and brian speiser from tedeschi trucks did the production and yeah, we worked there. it was a blast, a total blast. but, and alison brown played on this, the banjo player. this is a, that was a fun one. but here we go, we're gonna do it with us three.