lifeblood: songs: backgrounds: the ballad of squeaky fromme

1990-10-19: indigo girls are true-blue friends on- and offstage, the deseret news:

it's not that they're always of one mind on all of their songs. saliers recalls that she had mixed feelings about ray's as-yet unrecorded "ballad of squeaky fromme," a tune about the one-time member of charles manson's infamous "family" who was arrested after a failed assassination attempt against president gerald ford.

"i didn't feel that that song was my voice," saliers said. "i wouldn't be saying those things, and i didn't feel the same way she did, so she decided to do that song solo. she was taking a very sympathetic viewpoint. and the way she described it, i could understand her reasoning.

"but that's the only time that's happened. usually we really like and want to sing what the other one writes."

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1990-12-07: the nonmaterial indigo girls, the boston globe:

ray once even wrote a song, "the ballad of squeaky fromme," which searched for a positive tone in the woman who was charles manson's disciple. "it's a sympathy for the devil song," ray says. "but i believe we should try to understand things that are evil in order to overcome them. . . . i'm a complete pacifist, but i believe there's a bit of all of us in squeaky fromme."