Saturday, July 7, 2007

The Indigo Girls of Just Not Being Fair

You know who I like? The Indigo Girls.

Their melodies are so textured and gentle. Their harmonies? A+! The song "Closer To Fine" changed my life. It made me cry. They're so brave and crazy (apologies to Melissa Etheridge!), they just stand up there and play their acoustic guitars and tell the patrimony to go shove it somewhere. Even when they're singing about something that frankly doesn't sound like that big of a deal, and certainly not an injustice, I L-O-V-E T-H-E-M!
That line in 'Closer'? "It's only life afteralll...Hyeah." It's just so great how she underscores, just with that little 'hyeah', how life really is a big deal, you know? Why can't you see that, Men?

But I have to say, when they get around to dealing with Me, they're just not fair. I mean, look at this:

" I don't know when i noticed life was life at my expense
the words of my heart lined up like prisoners on a fence
the dreams came in like needy children tugging at my sleeve
i said i have no way of feeding you, so leave
but there was a time i asked my father for a dollar
and he gave it a ten dollar raise
and when i needed my mother and i called her
she stayed with me for days."

Okay, we're still getting to the part where they're mean to me. This is the song "Prince of Darkness", by the way. But they seem to be talking about...Well, I don't know, but on the other hand, I'm not always the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to poetry! I'm sure it's very good, and it's my fault that I don't get it.
But I can already see Amy (or...Rachel?) setting me up for a fall here. I've been mistreated by poets before (and movie producers!). She's a victim of some kind, that I understand. Of what, I couldn't tell you, but it's clear that pretty soon ...So one time her father gave her Eleven Dollars, and that's a bad thing? Her mom cares about her a lot? And she ignored the dream babies that were tugging at her sleeve like prisoners?
Something like that. But now look:


"now someone's on the telephone, desperate in his pain
someone's on the bathroom floor doing her cocaine
someone's got his finger on the button in some room
no one can convince me we aren't gluttons for our doom
but i tried to make this place my place
i asked for providence to smile upon me with his sweet face
yeah but i'll tell you
my place is of the sun and this place is of the dark
and i do not feel the romance i do not catch the spark
my place is of the sun and this place is of the dark
(by grace, my sight grows stronger)
and i do not feel the romance i will not be
(and i will not be a pawn for the prince of darkness any longer"

Um, you know how often I get blamed for cocaine use? Pretty much every time one of you crybabies gets depressed the day after, that's how often. And nuclear war? Now, I suspect that Ozzy Osbourne had more to do with this than the Girls, but I get this one a lot. I'll say it again: that was You, you stupid morons!
And at what point did anyone ever say I don't like sunlight? I'm asking.

Worse yet, I get the overwhelming impression that I'm being sort of blamed for her not liking men. I'm jus' sayin'. She (whichever one of them wrote this) was never my 'pawn', so that means that she never had to take any heroic steps to break away from me and get all the freedom that they occasionally sing about. When they're not singing about the million and one nasty things people do to them all the time.
I mean, if they really want to attack the male principal at large: Hel-lo? That's God!
The guy insists on being called 'Father' (when he's not being called 'Lord'-ew.), and that kind of thing is just wrong, and makes him look even more like an abusive parent later on, when he does the mean things he's always doing. Like making both cocaine and war.

I don't know, I like the Indigo Girls (so does Stacy!), and I just don't see what it was I did that makes them sing so passionately and clearly about the need to avoid me? Or even obscurely and indirectly? But they use my name, okay? It's really not right. Oh, how would anyone like it if I said, "Amy Ray, you're responsible for smog, okay? Stop it!" She'd hate that!

So get it together to stick it to 'The Man', which is to say God. He hates everyone, especially women (based on my reading), and don't even get me started on what I'm pretty sure he thinks about lesbians.

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