lifeblood: songs: backgrounds: rock and roll heaven's gate

2015-02-27: amy ray of indigo girls, song facts:

songfacts: and i didn't realize you had that connection with pink. you've done a couple of songs with her.

amy: yeah, we sang with her on "dear mr. president," and then we invited her to come sing on our record because of that.

songfacts: did she contact you and want to work with you or was it the other way around?

amy: i think her co-writer, billy mann, who has produced and co-written with her a lot, they came up with the idea together of having us do "dear mr. president" with her and approached us. and we were big pink fans even then, so we were kind of flabbergasted, actually, like, wow! we didn't even think she knew who we were. it was a big surprise.

but then it all made sense. we got together with them and did the song. and pink's an awesome person. she's just really a really great person and such a great artist. when you're in the studio with her and you hear her sing with no band and no effects - there's nothing else going on except for her voice - it's just quite amazing. her voice is tremendous.

it was just really cool. and they were like, "we've been listening to indigo girls for 30 years." who knew? and then i had a song that i wanted her to sing on, so we invited her to the studio and she came and met with us at our studio when we were working in santa monica.

songfacts: it's interesting, because i saw her concert one time and i wasn't really that familiar with her. and before i saw her i kind of put her in that category of pop divas. but after seeing her perform and realizing how truly great she is, she's really kind of the best of that group by far that i've seen.

amy: and it's funny, because a lot of those songs are actually better than you think they're going to be. it's almost like they take this person that's so gifted and brilliant and works so hard, and they have to make it sort of lowest common denominator stuff. so we're not receiving as much talent as they have sometimes. i think there's more people like pink than we know.

songfacts: you're probably right.

amy: a lot of times all the gifts are sort of hidden under these layers, and you sit down with one of those people in a room when they're singing, and you're just, like, oh my god, this person is a powerhouse, and a really good writer. it's just one of those things where they go a certain path and sometimes people don't understand how great they are.