lifeblood: songs: backgrounds: sure feels good anyway

2018-08-10: indigo girls' amy ray goes country soul with 'sure feels good anyway,' talks southern liberal frustrations, billboard:

and for the provocative "sure feels good anyway," ray grapples with her beliefs and her strong southern identity.

"i'm happy to be a southerner but sometimes...not bitter about it but frustrated by what's around me," explains ray, whose four-year-old daughter's father, who's also gay, lives in the same town. "i feel very rooted in the south and very proud of it in a very deep way and i could never leave it. as a liberal and a democrat and a lesbian i'm in a distinct minority here, but at the same time when i'm in trouble and i need some help with something, people help out and don't worry about our differences. that's part of the south, too, i think.

"so that's what that song is about, a kind of 'don't judge a book by its cover' kind of thing. now, i'm sure if i was a black lesbian living down here i don't know if the same thing would happen. so there's a lot of different layers to this conversation."

----------

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

gs: in the four years between the release of "holler" and "goodnight tender," we have had to endure the election of donald trump and all that came with it. am i on the right track when i say it sounds to me like you address that somewhat in the songs "sure feels good" and "didn't know a damn thing?"

ar: yes, for sure! i don't know if it was so much affected specifically by the presidential election as more of the whole vibe of the country and my own community. the polarization and thinking about issues around being a southerner. trying to take on some accountability myself, and to try to understand where people are coming from, as well. "sure feels good" is my song of where i live and the dynamics of people like me that are coming from a different place than other folks. how do we rectify that? how do we understand each other? it's easy to dismiss people because they don't agree with you about things because you dogmatically think they're going to feel a certain way about things. or it's not possible for them to come around to a place of tolerance or understanding. that's not where i exist. i exist in a place where you get to know your neighbors and you help each other out, regardless of where you come from. eventually those barriers start to fall away and you begin to understand each other. hopefully, things change. racism is the hardest thing to change in the south. but i've found that there are still people who do change. i've also found that there are people who have a knee-jerk reaction because of the way we're put into niches and demographics who aren't being their best selves all the time, and i say, "i know you're a better person than this. i've seen you in my community. i've seen the things you do to help other people. and i've seen you at church. i know you have it in you to be better than this." we all can be better than this.

----------

2018-11-12: amy ray on new album, acceptance and rock 'n' roll, the windy city times:

windy city times: congrats on the album! as a liberal born and raised in north carolina it's cool to get that representation, because it's a weird spot to be in.

amy ray: it's definitely a fertile spot. there's lots to think about and learn from, but it can be really good. ... for me, the south has been a lot of great lessons over and over again.

we were the epicenter for a lot of hard stuff, but also for a lot of great civil rights stuff, and right now because it's so polarized and hard. but the thing is, you can't judge a book by its cover, so just when you think you've given up on some aspect of your community someone surprises you and does something amazing and you're like, "oh, i shouldn't be so narrow."

wct: and did that influence "sure feels good anyway?"

ar: oh yeah. that was just straight out of where i lived and the people i loved and my community and the differences i often have-just politically.

one thing to preface everything with is that i have a certain amount of privilege as a white person, to have a certain perspective on living in rural north georgia, where if i was a person of color having a dialogue with people up here it might not be easy.

race is going to be the hardest thing for us to beat. it's been easier for people to accept me as a queer person in georgia than if i was a person of color. ... it's the last thing we have to conquer somehow and i think in that song i was saying, "i love this place anyway, i want to stay here and i want to change it."

and it's saying, "look, i know that you talk about the flag like this and i know that there's a part of you that's a good person that helps people when they need help." ... and that's the part of you that you got to remember and draw on when you're trying to learn acceptance and tolerance and be brave enough to look at something that's hard to look at.

----------

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

holler, the recently released solo album from ray, finds the veteran artist continuing to dissect the world around her. "sure feels good anyway," which leads off the record, grapples with the divide that sometimes exists right outside of the front door for ray in her hometown of dahlonega, ga.

"i have a certain sympathy with the people who are good people, but they still have a confederate flag on their house. ...my neighbors may have been racist and homophobic at one time, but i believe that people can change," ray says via phone. she performs at 8 p.m. on tuesday, nov. 27, at e.j. thomas hall in akron. "i also appreciate the fact that when i'm stuck in my driveway and don't have enough horsepower to clear all the trees that have come down in an ice storm, those people come and help me."

she says one lesson she's learned is that you truly can't judge a book by its cover.

"[i've learned to] not have everything based on politics and all of that," she says. "even though it's hard not to personalize that, because when the battles become about things like whether you're gay or not or what your race is or what your socioeconomic level is, you feel like you do personalize it, because they're basing it on that. but those kind of family value politics - that's just this thing that we're all fooled by it. i know that a lot of these people are good people, and i know that when it comes down to it, one on one, they may vote in ways that are against me, but they can't be mean to me one on one. like, when i'm playing a benefit at their church for homeless people, they're not going to be mean to me. [laughs] and maybe one day, they're going to even embrace it."

ray continues to take advantage of her platform to hopefully do some good, recognizing the many challenges that still exist.

"it would be harder if i was hispanic or black or even asian in my community, it would be a lot harder," she says. "racism is sort of the last thing to fall, so that's the thing that i'm most dedicated to work on is, really issues around race because i feel like that's the last thing standing that we're going to have to [change]. i think we can get to a place with queer issues where we are in a more tolerant arena, and i think even with some feminist issues, but i think when it comes to race, that's the hardest thing."

----------

2019-02-18: official amy ray account, facebook

this video was filmed in georgia with the help of neighbors, friends and family. we started up in the north georgia hills and worked our way down to atlanta where we gathered for a meal in the backyard. my mom even dropped by for the festivities. this song is about my love of all the good things in the south and the reality of what we wrestle with; in spite of all that is unacceptable and dysfunctional, we take pride in our ability to gather and overcome.