Challenging Patriarchy One Song at a Time

Well, it's a great day for public radio listening. So, I'm listening to the second hour of Talk of the Nation and after a Republican presidential candidate comes the Indigo Girls, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers. I've been listening to them since high school and have seen them a few times in concert.

I know that Saliers is a Christian. I don't know about Ray. Both are out lesbians and dedicated social activists. They came out of Atlanta and went to Emory for undergrad--that's where I did my aborted stint as a doctoral student. They also have a great restaurant in Decatur, Ga called "The Watershed." Interestingly, Saliers' father is a Methodist minister and now retired from teaching Worship at Candler Divinity School at Emory. They wrote a book together and toured talking about music and spirituality.

anyway, the Indigo Girls are on tour and promoting their most recent CD. It was interesting to hear them play a song by Saliers called "Pendulum Swinger" which she described as about "taking on patriarchy in the church and the Bush administration." Here's a taste:

It's fine about the old scroll Sanskrit

Gnostic gospels the da vinci code a smash hit

Aren't we dying just to read it and relate

Too hard just to go by a blind faith

But they left out the sisters

Praying to a father god so long I really missed her

The goddess of benevolence

You should listen to your mama if you have a lick of sense left

In some ways, I feel like I've grown up with them and it's a testament to their music that a straight middle class white guy like me can get into it.

Grace and Peace,

Chase