![]() Early photos and interviews show Amy as a queer heartthrob, emanating a confident butch swagger and spouting queer politics in her raspy growl.īombach orchestrates a humorous sequence by asking them to read aloud an infamous review by New York Times music critic Jon Pareles, both groaning knowingly when they see the name. It’s true that Emily wrote the band’s most beautiful hits, like “Galileo,” “Closer to Fine,” “Power of Two,” and “Love Will Come to You.” But Amy was the one pounding the proverbial pavement in those early years, booking and promoting gigs before the duo landed a manager. And I just focused on the music and tried to hold up my end of the bargain.” “She always seemed a step ahead in terms of evolution,” she said. Meanwhile, Emily admired Amy for her boldness and drive. They are “opposites in many ways,” according to Amy, who claims Emily is the better songwriter (they always write separately). In their solo interviews (they are the only talking heads in the film), each lays out a sincere respect for what the other brought to the table. The connection was always one of deep friendship and artistic collaboration. Though they both came out quite young, they never dated, much to the surprise of the press and fans. To hear them both tell it, it was creative love at first sight, and they quickly began playing regular gigs throughout high school and college in the greater Atlanta area. Whether drawn by an unspoken queerness or the fact that they both played guitar, they began writing songs together in high school. ![]() Emily (the blonde one, as Tig Notaro once called her before a surprise appearance) was one year older than Amy (the brunette one), who idolized the dynamic and outgoing songwriter. Hagiography can be forgiven when it’s this deserved, but it’s hard to kill your darlings when they saved your life.īoth raised in Decatur, Georgia, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers met in elementary school. Filmmaker Alexandria Bombach (“On Her Shoulders”) makes no secret of her fandom, writing in her director’s statement that she, too, was saved by Indigo Girls. Long minimized and dismissed as “women’s music,” the gap between their cultural impact (not to mention songwriting skills) and critical recognition of their work is as long as the movie’s slapdash final chapters. So the film could be a little (okay, a lot) tighter - that’s only a reflection of how overdo the Indigo Girls’ flowers are. Brimming with previously unseen footage and refreshingly frank interviews with the artists, it’s an adoring opus befitting two long overlooked musicians and activists. Taking one such lyric for its title, “It’s Only Life After All” is a sweeping and sincere documentary that tells the story of how Indigo Girls Amy Ray and Emily Saliers met, made music, and pushed and inspired each other to reach their unlikely and enduring success. The song has frequently closed concerts since its premiere in 1992.There’s a common refrain uttered wistfully by fans of Indigo Girls, the iconic folk rock duo that did more for lesbian visibility than anyone who came after: “Indigo Girls saved my life.” That’s not only true for queer people of a certain age, but any sensitive soul who has felt held by the tight harmonies, beautiful melodies, and poetic storytelling lyrics that came to define the Indigo Girls sound. The song's chorus invokes both existential angst and Galileo's genius with "How long till my soul gets it right/Can any human being ever reach the highest light/I call on the resting soul of Galileo/King of night vision, king of insight", referencing both the clarity of physical vision made possible through his modernizations of the telescope and his support of Copernicanism, which stated that the Sun, rather than the Earth, was the center of the universe. The song is about reincarnation, partially through the lens of the story of Galileo Galilei, the 17th century physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the scientific revolution. ![]() It reached #10 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, the first song by the Indigo Girls to break the top ten on any chart. ![]() It was released in 1992 on their platinum-selling fourth studio album Rites of Passage. " Galileo" is a song written by Emily Saliers and recorded and performed by folk rock group the Indigo Girls. 1992, Bearsville Studios, Woodstock, New York
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