lifeblood: songs: backgrounds: our deliverance

2002-xx-xx: indigo girls, keppler associates inc:

in 2001, while amy toured behind her solo album stag, emily enjoyed some time off. "i had a good breathing period to collect my thoughts," she notes. "my new songs like 'deconstruction,' 'collecting you,' and 'our deliverance' are reflective. they capture an evolution in my approach to life - they're the songs of me, a 38 year-old rather than a 25 year-old. this is really the first time i felt this good about a bunch of new songs without hearing it from someone else."

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2002-02-22: indigo girls get fresh on back-to-basics cd, the boston globe:

the message of "our deliverance" is heard in the line "lay down your weapon, and love your neighbor as thyself."

"i couldn't say it any more poetically," saliers says. "i had to say it straight out. people always reference god when they're fighting wars, that god is on their side and all that stuff. but according to everything i've read, life is all about not warring with your neighbor, and no nation is exempt from that rule. i just wanted to remind myself and others about that."

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2002-03-08: indigo girls hold onto their roots, cnn website:

cnn: tell us about the inspiration for the different songs.

ray: it's vast. a song like "become you" ... deals with [the fact that] i'm a southerner from about four generations of southerners. and it deals with the conflicts of being really in love with the south and feeling entrenched, but not appreciating the history of racism and understanding the historical significance of things with the confederacy and all that - but not agreeing with a lot of it. ... so i wanted to write a song about how we become what we are, each side, and how to respect each other in that dialogue. and i think it can apply to bigger, broader issues in the world.

saliers: [i'm] just thinking of a song "our deliverance," that was greatly affected by the events in our country september 11. it's actually a song for a call to peace, saying that war doesn't work; it's never worked since the beginning of humankind. and the song starts out on a very personal note. at this point in life, hopefully i can see patterns emerging, and how faith guides your life when you don't know how you can control things and make them work and fit the pieces, but if you have faith, good things are going to come.

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2002-03-21: indigo girls show true colors, university wire:

u-wire: both being raised methodist, can you explain the spirituality in your songs?

saliers: early on for me the bible was just a rich source of literature, so i'd say some of the religious images [in our earlier songs] were almost knee-jerk images. a song like "our deliverance" (from "become you") really speaks more to where my faith is now. my faith is the guiding thing in my life, above all else. it doesn't have to be a particular faith - christian or jewish or buddhist or whatever. i don't have to put a name on it. but i do feel i need a community to share it with.

ray: i was a religion major in college and i'm just fascinated by religious text of all kinds. my spirituality is very nondenominational (laughing). for me it's all about the religion of spirits - the human spirit and all the spirits in nature. i'm just fascinated by the way everything interacts ecologically, and that's religion to me.

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200x-xx-xx: the meaning of some indigo girls lyrics:

(girlfriends magazine) emily: "'our deliverance' started out as a personal song and then became more of an outcry against the devastation of war, how violence doesn't work, and how we've got to find a way to do it different."