The Cancer of My Intellect

This morning, I was browsing through my ipod when I decided to listen to the Indigo Girls’ seminal and eponymous album. I remember the first time I heard them was being covered by All But One in high school. This guy in the band Steve Gupta was telling us about them. They covered(of course) “Closer to Fine”. Let me tell you something if you learn this song on guitar, girls will love you. Because they will want to sing it while you play it.

Which reminds me, one day when we were sitting in front of West Springfield High School waiting for our dad to come pick us up. Brent had his guitar(really Ron’s guitar but who’s counting?)and was absent mindedly playing it. This one dude came up and said, “Do you know ‘Free Fallin’? If you do, the chicks go crazy for it!”

Now, “Free Fallin'”(no offense to T. Petty) is an insanely easy song to play. Which I think is very funny. That it is THIS song that makes the girls go crazy. But this was 1990 so maybe they did then.

But this is all prologue. What I really wanted to talk about was something that’s always bothered me about the Indigo Girls. It’s their damn wordiness. It’s too much. It’s conceited. It’s pretentious and it just sticks out at you.

For instance, I was listening to “Love’s Discovery” I think it’s called. It’s an Emily song and you know you’re going to find these words in Emily’s songs. Amy’s more the rocker so she doesn’t think as much about it but Emily has to put these little turns of phrases in there.

Like “the cancer of my intellect”. Ugh! Something about it just sticks out and pains me. There are others which I will detail as they come to me. You’ll note that the big hits of their career are invariably songs without these little gems.

They’re simple. Straight to the point. I think people like that. I mean the names even reflect that, “Closer To Fine”, “Least Complicated”, “Galileo”. Er…

I mean, there’s another one! “Galileo”. You know, king of Night Vision, king of insight? WTF?! Who thinks that?

I still love the Indigo Girls. I just think they take themselves a little too seriously. By the by, the worst Indigo Girls song? Easily, “Joking”. Easily!