All My CDs, pt 64: Rites of Passage

Rites of Passage - Indigo Girls

Boy, I've had this album for a long time. It was the first studio album of the Indigo Girls that I added to my collection, after having owned 1200 Curfews just long enough to fall in love. It contains Three Hits, Love Will Come to You, Galileo, Airplane...

Which brings me to one of my newest observations about Rites of Passage and the Indigo Girls in general. Some of their more popular songs are... Well, lighter and fluffier than others. Galileo is one. It's intelligent and far from cliched - love songs are a dime a dozen, but how many pop songs adulate an iconic scientist using the imagery of reincarnation? But the song's meaning isn't hard to follow when compared to, say, Three Hits, whose lyrics are more poetic and opaque. As a result I think songs like Galileo lose their appeal to me rather quickly, as I eventually find there isn't much beyond the surface for me to explore. Such is also true of Airplane, which I never even liked all that much to begin with, and which now sounds all the more insipid to me.

However, it hasn't really happened with Love Will Come to You, which although simple is intensely relateable, and expresses a sentiment commonly felt but, strangely, seldom put to song:  "And I said love will come to you / Hoping just because I said the words that they're true."

The song Nashville is one that I've only begun to appreciate now, never having given it much thought before. My growing affection is purely for the melodies and harmonies that seem to wind like a sparkling river through hills. I always did love rivers. I haven't paid a whole lot of attention to the words though.

Romeo and Juliet is another of those angsty love songs I raved about in my last review, but a rare one that is written largely in the third person. It has always intrigued me with its turns of phrase, turning the old love cliches into fresh and fiery metaphors: "Juliet, the dice were loaded from the start / and I bet, and you exploded into my heart." In addition to the obvious Shakespear, the words make a few allusions to West Side Story, which makes me think I should finally watch it.

Let it Be Me is another relative rarity, as a politically-charged protest song that is more positive than negative, focused on the sense of responsibility and empowerment felt by those called to make change in their communities:

Let it be me
(This is not a fighting song)
Let it be me
(Not a wrong for a wrong)
Let it be me
If the world is night
Shine my life like a light

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