lifeblood: songs: backgrounds: power of two

1994-02-18: unknown source:

" 'the power of two,' is just - it's a love song. it's really - it's about hope in the face of the - things that you have to face. what people go through to try and make a relationship work. you know, about fear of commitment and yet it all their childhood fears about love too, the monster beneath your bed and things like that, and the ghosts in your head and it's all about overcoming those things and it's just a very sweet, hopeful love song. it's pretty simple."

...

" 'power of two' is a pure and simple love song. it's a hopeful song. it's about a relationship and what you overcome, your own hangups that you overcome in order to make it work. and it's very simple musically too. and that's the one that we had shake sing on, the gospel singer. which turned out really well. and we had a little bit of harmonica on there and did a couple of different things."

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emily saliers quote from 1994-xx-xx: swamp ophelia, epic press release:

"a straightforward love song with a little groove to it. i found those chords and liked the progression, and i wrote it very quickly. amy and i learned it and we didn't change it in the studio, except we got shake anderson to sing on it. i heard shake opening up for another artist at a gig in nashville, just him on guitar and another guy on sax. he had this deep, booming, soulful voice that really brought out the r&b fanatic in me."

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2005-09-11: their soul gets it right, the lexington herald-leader:

"our audience is really special," ray said before the 2003 singletary performance. "one night, emily was having some vocal problems and was losing her voice. we knew somebody in the crowd wanted to hear power of two (a saliers tune from the 1994 indigos album swamp ophelia), but it was just going to be out of her range. so we just played it, and the audience sang the whole song, from top to bottom. it was just stunning.

"that makes you realize the experience is not just about us. it's about us and the audience together. it's a mutual give-and-take. we can't do it without them, and they can't do it without us. that's a community, right there."

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2020-01-31: artfully political: the indigo girls, the santa fe new mexican:

pasa: you have several truly iconic songs that enormous crowds of people sing along with at your concerts. do you know what your most requested song is? and is there a physical sensation at a concert when all those people are singing with you?

ray: "watershed" is very requested. "the wood song," "galileo," "power of two." people assume we're going to do "closer to fine," so they don't really request it. i don't even know how to describe it when crowds sing along. it's a physical thing because it's sound waves, and it's overwhelming. i love it. i couldn't do the songs over and over again if it was just us playing without that kind of participation and community vibe. it would be boring to me. for me, that makes it feel different all the time. you hear different things. some crowds have people singing harmonies and counter melodies. i always feel lucky.