lifeblood: songs: backgrounds: last taxi fare

2018-08-24: an interview with amy ray of indigo girls, qnotes:

gs: i'm glad you mentioned collaboration. as always, you have a stellar line-up of guest musicians on the new album, including brandi carlile, vince gill, justin vernon (bon iver), lucy wainwright roche and rutha mae harris of the freedom singers. when you are writing a song - "last taxi fare," for example - do you hear the guest artist's voice, in this case brandi carlile, as part of the process?

ar: sometimes. on that particular song, as i was finishing it, believe it or not [laughs], i actually did hear brandi, and i did hear vince. i wrote that song over a very long period of time. i think i had watched a cmt award show or something and vince was singing with taylor swift and allison krauss and a few other people. i've always loved him, but in that moment, i was like, "that guy can really sing harmony!" in any situation. i was working on that song and it was in my fantasy head that brandi and vince would form a trio with me. it's the weirdest thing, but alison brown, who plays banjo on the record, happens to be friends with vince. it was like one of those moments where it was like, "i can't believe this is going to work out." in that case, i was definitely hearing them. vince was an "if you could have anything in the world" kind of thing.

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2018-10-11: a conversation with amy ray, the 11th hour

one of the things i liked about the record is that analog recording. nothing sounds like it. i mean, digital is great for preservation and all, but analog just sounds so... so hot and nice. i never would have considered an amy ray, vince gill collaboration... is that him singing? when he comes in on "last taxi fare"?

(laughs) yeah, that's him!

how did that all come together?

well, it was a fantasy of mine (laughs)! i love vince gill so much, and i love his voice. he's classic. he's just got the greatest voice! i wrote that song and then really wanted brandi on it- and i was like, "it would be amazing if i could get vince gill to sing with brandi and with me on that song!" so i was just kinda talking about it with my friend alison brown, who plays banjo on the record, and she's like, "oh, i'm friends with him. you want me to ask him?" and i was like, "yes! of course, i do!" he's a gentleman and such a sweet guy. i asked him, and he was like, "yeah, i'll do it!" and it was a dream come true for me... for that song, just to have them on there. because when i was writing, when i was finishing it, i was thinking about his voice and brandi's voice- and it just happened to come true! it was really good.

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2018-11-15: amy ray embraces country and draws from her punk-ish past for her new solo album, the cleveland scene:

meanwhile, "last taxi fare" has a gloriously old-school late-night country vibe to it and came out of a real experience that she had in sheboygan, wi.

"i was at this bowling alley, and i was just over it, and everybody was drunk, and i was just having trouble with drinkers in my life generally. it's kind of an al-anon song," she chuckles. "i needed to leave, and i couldn't find a cab. i found one, and then the guy was like, 'can i go pick somebody else up?' it literally was a drunk person to sit in the back seat with me for 20 minutes, and he tried to talk to me the whole time."

ray points to the end of the song, which captures the message that she got from the experience.

"it was just a vision of me, when i was sitting there - it was what i was i thinking about to get myself.....i was just like, 'you know, this is meant to be and i'm supposed to learn something from this," she says now. "what if this guy was the [driver's] father or something? and he's just helping him out. i tried to go through those scenarios. i ended up writing a song where that was the story because it helped me get over it and be a better human being that night and not be a jerk, basically. [laughs] because i felt like everything that happens, that kind of stuff, where you're put in these compromising situations, you know that's where you really learn your life skills and how to be a better person."