But it is just as important to be around women, and be in the company of women. And then also, to me, there is a mysticism in the feminine there’s an unspeakable power! Many cultures speak of prophecies of the power of women to save people … It’s a wellspring of creativity, nurturing, support, fierceness … I’ve realized that it’s been so important to be around queer community. “We’re really proud of what we mean to girls … Our initial power came from the women’s queer community where we came up, and I can’t think about ‘girl power’ without an extension out of the heart of that. Can the Indigo Girls remain a beacon for peaceful and transcendent plurality, within the queer community that roots them and the larger world that flocks to them … and still be icons of girlhood? In the ’90s, borrowing your soccer captain’s Rites of PassageCD was itself a rite of passage.īut much like the universe, gender is expanding in faster and more beautiful ways than we can see. Like Body Shop kiwi lip balm and stolen flasks of vodka, the band’s songs were passed from girl to girl in an intimate adolescent ritual that was boring and holy all at once. Most women I interviewed first heard the Indigo Girls through their older sibling’s boom boxes, a babysitter’s Walkman, or a camp counselor’s talent show solo. The Indigo Girls with their first Grammy Awards in 1990 Chris Walter // Getty Images ![]() They don’t get how important this band is yet. And it’s vital.” Jones will sometimes sneak Indigo Girls classics like “The Wood Song” into her sons’ breakfast soundtrack. “Hearing life is so much bigger and richer than being someone else’s obsession-that’s not a lesson we got very often. We were watching movies about how you have to change who you are to fall in love,” like The Princess Diaries, Never Been Kissed, and The Breakfast Club. For teenage girls in the ’90s, I think we always knew that, but saying it out loud was kind of revolutionary.”Īnd lawyer and mother Joy Nova Jones, 40, says, “They’re the first band that told me friendship is hard because it’s worth it. The Indigo Girls are partners because they’re best friends, right? In their world, friendships can be even stronger than romance. “That was the band for smart girls who knew the world was bigger than what we were offered.”Īdds TV writer Gloria Shen, 41, “I was struggling with what kind of woman I wanted to be. “You can’t separate Indigo Girls from ’90s American girlhood,” says Katie Sturino, the Megababe founder and body activist who, quite literally, tears up saying their name. ![]() Meanwhile, at summer camps nationwide, tweens continue to sing “Galileo” around campfires, raising arms laced in friendship bracelets they’ve tied onto one another. They’re on an international tour that is selling out worldwide, getting covered by Brandi Carlile, and serving as a minor plot point in Curtis Sittenfeld’s best-selling beach read Romantic Comedy, released in April. “To have a song in a major movie that’s not a drag ? To get offered something that works on every level for us? When does that happen to you later in your career?”Īmy Ray (left) and Emily Saliers Jeremy Cowartīut a lot is happening for the Indigo Girls right now.īesides their boost from Barbie, the duo star in an acclaimed documentary from director Alexandria Bombach called It’s Only Life After All, which premiered at Sundance last January. “It was a big giant gift that fell out of the sky,” says Saliers. “I had GI Joe.”) But the duo was impressed with Greta Gerwig’s subversive wink of a script. ![]() (“I never had any Barbies as a kid,” Ray laughs. Ray and Emily Saliers, now 60, created the band in 1985 with an activist through-line of queer liberation, compassion, and shredded denim. “At first, I was a little bit nervous to link with Barbie,” admits Amy Ray, 59, when we speak over Zoom between tour stops. The moment brings us to a universal truth, confirmed by anyone who’s ever cried mascara tears: When a Barbie girl escapes her Barbie world, she does it shouting Indigo Girls lyrics. It’s not for Margot Robbie’s pink Chanel dress, though-it’s because as she flees the confines of her tiny plastic castle, she’s belting out the vintage folk-rock hit “Closer to Fine.” It’s awful quiet here since I’m working on a summer Friday, so I watch the Barbie trailer, like 57 million other YouTube users have.
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