lifeblood: songs: backgrounds: let it be me

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

"having lived with it for a while, i think the tempo of the song 'let it be me' is too slow on the record. because when we were doing it live it felt much more natural to play it a little more quickly. i don't think 'let it be me' is one of my better songs though, so it wasn't like 'oh, we ruined this great song by playing it slow.' "

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2019-03-26: lucy wainwright roche: five essential indigo girls songs, wfuv.org:

"shame on you," (amy), shaming of the sun (1997)

"let it be me" (emily), rites of passage (1992)

i'm going to bend the five-song rule here and split this slot between two songs. it's hard to talk about what's essential about the indigo girls without touching on the political content in their work. to write effectively about topical issues is, to say the least, difficult, and saliers and ray have both found a way to do it that works for them and their audience. both of these songs examine the how we struggle with the rights and wrongs of our singular lives and how that spins out into the world at large. if you have a chance to see these two songs played live, you might be surprised to feel that joy that can be found at the intersection of personal and political frustration. maybe finding some joy is what it takes to keep on pushing toward what you believe in in these times.