lifeblood: songs: backgrounds: land of canaan

emily saliers quote from 1994-03: the indigo girls: the musical ties that bind, performing songwriter:

"i love her old standby upbeat songs like 'land of canaan.' i'll never get tired of playing that song, even though she does."

----------

amy ray quote from 1999-12-17: transcription, yahoo chat:

"that was just the basic unrequited love song. someone was cheating on me."

----------

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!

----------

2021-04-05: we sat down with amy ray to talk about the last 35-years of making music - and magic - with the indigo girls, gladd:

jm: i also don't want this entire conversation to make it sound like emily is the good songwriter and amy is not.

ar: that's okay. she writes all the classic songs.

jm: that's not true. you've written many, including "land of canaan."

ar: yeah, i did. it's classic, but it's not this well-crafted, technically accomplished song. it's a passionate song with two chords, which is fine.

jm: you look like you're working really hard when you play that song live, which is fun to see on stage.

ar: i'm working hard on that one, for sure. it's true. it's a lot of strumming. that one's so old, it's got a certain sentiment that just takes on a life of its own in a way.

when i sing that, i can still feel the feelings i felt when i wrote it and be in it. it's a very young song in a lot of ways. in its writing, it's young. i've learned a lot about writing since then, but i don't shy away from singing it because of that. for that song in particular, i can still feel passionate about the feelings i was having at the time, and i don't look at it and be like, "oh my god, i was so overwrought." i look at it and i think to myself, "wow, i was in a real bind in that moment in my life." and it's good, i can remember that.