lifeblood: songs: backgrounds: kid fears

1989-03-01: folk-rock indigo girls tune up for the big stage, the washington times:

[amy ray] " 'how much further' is about reaching it in the music business. it's sort of a cut down on people who are just trying to make it, people who would sell their soul, who would sell out, who would do anything."

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1989-08-04: indigo girls mix rock and folk personalities, the richmond times-dispatch:

[emily saliers] "we were kinda pals with michael. he met us in a club in athens called the uptown, where we used to play. still play, actually. so we did a couple of projects with him, wrote a song with him, played an outdoor festival. and amy had kind of written "kid fears" with his voice in mind. the rest of the members we met or just knew in passing. and when it came time to do the album, they were all in town."

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1994-03: the indigo girls: the musical ties that bind, performing songwriter:

[amy ray] " 'kid fears' captured a period of my life and it's a really important song to me, so i really like that one."

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1995-xx-xx: interview by kirsti reeve:

[amy ray] "i still like kid fears a lot. i like the bridge, you know, musically i like the way it works, and i like the words. as far as an old song..."

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1997-xx-xx: scholastic song writing contest tape transcription

amy: i wrote kid fears thinking about a few of my friends that had been through very painful experiences when they were young - abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse - by parents or friends or you know peers in school. and i was comparing that to the fact that the things that i was afraid of as a child you know was the ghost under the bed, it wasn't my dad coming in to beat me up, and there's a big difference between that. and i think i was trying to sort of speak to people that i knew had been through much worse than i had ever imagined.

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2008-08-01: amy ray takes your questions, afterellen.com

q: what is the inspiration behind the song "kid fears"? - noa

ar: when i wrote that, i had some very close friends who were battling a lot of problems: health problems and drug problems. it inspired that song.

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2014-04-29: ar.1989, official indigo girls "a year a month blog" on tumblr

the record came out in march of '89, and then we hit the road. we did a bunch of shows opening for rem, and this launched our success. at the time, this kind of touring slot was invaluable to a band. it was a type of exposure you couldn't get any other way. there was no internet, so in order to play in front of a larger audience, you had to open for someone big or get a break at radio or tv. the rem tour led to so many opportunities for us, there would be no way to overstate the importance of the help they gave us. they treated us super well on tour and showed us the ropes. sometimes michael would come out and sing "kid fears," which would help tame the audience a bit. we did pretty well, but we were playing big arenas as an acoustic duo, opening for a superstar rock band on the rise, so it was pretty scary most nights. one night someone threw a bunch of m&m's at us during "land of canaan." it pissed me off and made me play twice as fast. most nights, i would pray that michael would show up and sing with us in the set, so people would take us seriously and i wouldn't be so nervous. it's a real game changer when you're opening for someone and they come out and sing or play during your set. to this day, a lot of folks that support our music still tell me that they first heard us when we opened for rem!

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2015-02-27: amy ray of indigo girls, song facts:

songfacts: let's travel back in time a little bit and talk about some of the indigo girls music. the indigo girls has a connection with r.e.m., and i noticed that michael stipe sings on "kid fears." then also, members of r.e.m. played on "tried to be true." looking back, what kind of an impact did that relationship have on jump-starting your career?

amy: it was a huge relationship in starting our career. there's no way to overestimate or overstate how important they were. when we got signed to epic, we were making a living actually, and selling records and doing really well. but we were on a certain level.

and when we got signed, the guy that signed us hooked us up with this producer that had worked with r.e.m., and also we had already recorded our indigo record with john king, who was working with r.e.m., as it happened. so we had these two different connections. and scott litt got involved with us and then he pulled in r.e.m. and introduced us to michael, peter, bill and mike. at first, it was this sort of set-up thing. they were into what we were doing and everything, but we were introduced to each other. it was definitely scott litt saying, "hey, r.e.m., do you want to get involved with this?"

and then we got to know each other, we became friends with michael and did some acoustic stuff - it was successful as an acoustic trio, and it was really fun. and r.e.m. took us out after our first record as an opening band, as a favor, really, because of scott litt and john king, and the connections that we had, and the fact that they played on the record.

i don't think we would have the listenership, the audience that we have, without that tour, because so many people who i've talked to over the last five years or so have said, "oh, the first time i heard you was with r.e.m." at some big shows that we played at these big arenas when we were opening for them. it launched us into this whole other realm and grew us exponentially as far as the live music scene. at that time we didn't have the internet and youtube and everything, so the way that people heard you on a bigger scale was to open for someone that was bigger than you so you can get the word out. now, if you have a successful youtube video, it does more than opening for a big artist. but at the time that was the thing. i mean, that was it.