lifeblood: songs: backgrounds: virginia woolf

1992-05: rites of passage, epic records press release:

"her writing changed my life this year. i'd read 'to the lighthouse' in college, but i didn't really get it until much later. my mom bought me a copy of abridged diaries, and the writing completely spoke to my own experience - even things like her description of an eclipse of the sun, which happened again this year."

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1992-06-07: indigo girls bring literature to songwriting, the st. louis post-dispatch:

q: what are the differences in the ways you and emily saliers approach songwriting?

a: emily is totally inspired by what she reads. that's the main thing that's similar about us. but she sits down at one point, in one area, and writes music. i write songs as i'm going through life, no matter where i am. she'll sit down in her house for two hours and work on one of her songs because she has to discipline herself and because we're always on the road and she can't write when she's on the road.

she probably takes more imagery directly out of the stuff she reads. i think she had some imagery from (alfred, lord tennyson's) "lady of shalott" in that old song "left me a fool" (from the 1989 album "strange fire"). and in the song "virginia woolf," she uses some of the images that virginia woolf used.

i think that happens more often in emily's songs. she's more verbose than i am - not in a negative way. i mean her vocabulary is just larger than mine.

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1992-06-07: virginia woolf influences show in indigos' new album, the knoxville news-sentinel:

"while we were on tour, i started reading her (virginia woolf) published diaries," says saliers. "her thoughts just spoke to me. i really felt a friendship through the pages."

sailers says she was amazed at the power woolf's words and ideas still had.woolf's work inspired her so much that she felt she had to write a song.

saliers says she read woolf while in college, but only recently began to appreciate her.

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1992-07-03: indigo girls still click, usa today:

"i was always taught to examine my life and make sure that i was doing the right thing and that i was reaching out," saliers says. "at times it can be torturous, you're never at ease. i can never get out exactly what i want to say. then i read somebody like virginia woolf who says it perfectly and i think i should give it up."

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2012-08-27: q&a: emily saliers, theater jones performing arts news:

which classical composers have influenced you?

"i've always loved baroque music. bach of course. i love debussy, i love the emotion of his work, and composers like erik satie. it was the span of classical music, not so much the modernist music. but like at the beginning of "virginia woolf," with all the different string parts, it's very classical. i always like suspensions and resolutions, so that music played a big role through my inner ear."

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emily saliers quote from 2012-10-15: indigo girls bring full electric show to baltimore, baltimore gay life:

how have they [the shadowboxers] changed the dynamic of the tour? is there a real tangible change to the feel of things; obviously there's a tangible change to the sound of things when you're in a full band set up.

"that's a good question, in [the song] "virginia woolf," they sort of do a mock up of the string intro, but it's their own. it's classical guitar, electric guitar, and some keyboard stuff, and it's kind of weird and eerie and sci-fi, so while it's a takeoff on the [original] intro, it's not the same thing."