lifeblood: songs: backgrounds: what are you like

emily saliers quote from 2009-04-03: on the download: indigo girls, oh my good:

jb: you've talked about how two of the songs, and i think these are both your songs, a "fleet of hope" and "love of our lives," are really about questioning the ability for love to last, and the maintenance of long lasting relationships. is it coming from a very personal place for you guys? for a lack of better term... are you bitter about love right now?

es: no! it's so funny because if you didn't know me you would think i was a very depressed person, you know, who had lost all hope, but it was actually a pretty bleak time. and it's true, i mean just about, i mean my own relationship just ended and then just about everybody i knew who was in decade plus relationships all started breaking up. and then it was also a time of life where your parents start passing away and just the longer you live, the more shit happens, you know? hopefully, you learn enough to be able to weather those storms but it becomes particularly challenging, or for me personally at that stage in my life, it was becoming very challenging trying to make sense of anything lasting and so it's all very reflected in the lyrics of the songs. they're the bleakest lyrics i've probably ever written as in a group of songs since we started. the only happy one is "what are you like." and the rest of them are just loaded with questions and efforts of trying to understand and trying to hold on to hope for how to make love last. that's my personality, that's all i think about, and that's all i want to have happen for everybody.