Red Letter Year :: Ani DiFranco

Red Letter Year - a title that plays on the phrase 'red letter day,' which means a day of special significance - is truly a great album. With Todd Sickafoose, Allison Miller and Mike Dillon (among some other pretty fabulous string players) in her newly formed band, DiFranco has really never sounded better. Her voice and her guitar sound clearer than ever before, while maintaining the rawness and attitude she is most known for. The general flow of the album takes you back and forth and around the bend - by the end of it, you feel as though you've been on a road trip with DiFranco and Friends!

What makes Red Letter Year so impressive, to me, is that this is the 35th officially released album that DiFranco has put out (not including collaborative work) in less than 20 years - and she manages to make each album not only unique, but musically/artistically sound. Regardless of whether or not you dig her musical stylings, all of DiFranco's albums are raw, true, and have the ability to pull you in (if you let them) and speak to the plethora of experiences we go through in our daily lives. Be it love, loss, frustration, anger, joy, heartache, despair, or hope - DiFranco can bend your heart strings just as well as she can her guitar.

(Can you tell I am a fan?)

So, back to the topic at hand - Red Letter Year. This album brings back all the sides of DiFranco that I love most - but with a touch of happy/hopefullness in all the songs! What a great album to go with the upcoming inauguration of President Obama in less than a month! I really love this album and all that it speaks to, so I hope that you have a decent chunk of uninterrupted time to devote to letting this music pour over/around/in you like a faucet on a sponge.

Here's a list of my top 5 favorite tracks (although I truly do love the ENTIRE album!):

1. Red Letter Year
2. Present Infant
3. Smiling Underneath
4. Way Tight
5. Round a Pole
   

Here's to a Red Letter Year...

The end.
Love,
Meggo.

P.S. The portrait of DiFranco came from HERE.

Red Letter Year

Alla This :: Ani DiFranco

so...we haven't had an Ani DiFranco post since we started this blog back in Nov/Dec of 2007. it is about time we get a little more of her!

i started running *GASP* this week, and so far things are going really well. and during my runs, i select a random cd and just run to that. sometimes i get caught off guard by a song and i get fixated on it for the rest of my run. this particular song did just that to me. i was first introduced to Ani during my first year of college (i know....really late) and quickly joined the Church of DiFranco. besides her amazing guitar skills and unique voice, Ani's lyrics are what get me every time. she is not just a musician, she is a poet. and her lyrics speak to my activist heart.

this particular song is rockin because it's one of the more poignant political songs that Ani has done (in my opinion) in quite some time. it's right up there with Your Next Bold Move for me... so hopefully it will ring true for some of y'all.

the end.
love,
meggo.

Alla This :: Ani DiFranco


Alla This :: Ani DiFranco

i will not stand immersed,
in this ultra violent curse
i won't let you make a tool of me
i will keep my mind and body free
bye bye minutiae
of the day to day drama,
i'm expanding exponentially,
i am consciousness without identity

i am many things,
made of everything,
but i will not be your bank roll
i won't idle in your drive-thru,
i won't watch your electric sideshow
i got way
better places to go

i will maintain the truth
i knew naturally as a child
i won't forfeit my creativity,
to a world that's all laid out for me
i will look at everything around me
and i will vow to bear in mind
that all of this was just someone's idea
it could just as well be mine

i won't rent you my time
i won't sell you my brain
i won't pray to a male god
cuz that would be insane

and i can't support the troops,
cuz every last one of them's being duped,
and i will not rest a wink
until the women have regrouped

i am many things,
made of everything,
but i will not be your bank roll
i won't idle in your drive-thru
i won't watch your electric sideshow
i got way
better places to go

Bonus Song!!! This one is about DiFranco's baby daddy...it's not often we hear happy love songs from Ani, so enjoy!



Way Tight :: Ani DiFranco

i tell you what - there is plenty wrong with me,
but i fixed up a few old buildings...
and i planted a few trees.
children seem to like me,
and animals, too -
like the birds and the bees...

and eating a sandwich,
standing over the kitchen counter
with only the sound of chewing in the room -
i can see you as a challenge,
that i will eagerly meet...
'cuz you are way way way way sweet.

it’s just that kind of evening -
that cracks open like a half shaken beer,
cool and refreshing, running down your arm,
baby, there’s no other place i’d rather be...
than here, parting my periodic alarm.

you are ever true, ever new in love...
and i mean that in the best and worst way.
i don’t really know what i was so mad about,
but the full moon is about a week away.

i tell you what - there is plenty wrong with you,
stuff you’d sooner fight for than cop to
i think it’s just more reason why we are meant to be;
people say i look like you and you look like me...
a crazy combination of everything and nothing right...
we are way way way way way way way way way tight,
yes, we are way way way way way way way way way tight,
we are way way way way way way way way way tight.

When I'm Gone :: Ani DiFranco (cover of Phil Ochs)

This is not the song I actually wanted to write about this week. I attended Ani DiFranco's concert in Columbus on Wednesday and was absolutely galvanized by a song I had not heard her play before called "The Atom." The song was an environmental anthem railing against the dangers of nuclear power. That song was an amazing experience - due in large part to the musicians playing with Ani on this tour. Obviously, I wanted to find a video of her playing "The Atom" live and share it on the blog, or even find some recording of it that I could post, but it alas, it was not to be. The song can be found on Ani's "bootleg" live recording of a 2007 show she played in Boston (check her website). In lieu of that song, I leave you with Ani's cover of Phil Ochs' "When I'm Gone," the sentiment of which rings true for me at this moment in my life, as I am beginning to realize more and more and quickly life really goes by (even when you're lucky enough to live for a pretty long time) and how easily it can be clipped too short. To me, this song is not just about activism and the immediacy of the issues of our day and the opportunities we have to really participate in change, but is also about living each moment as if you won't live another. I think this doesn't mean we have to go crazy and work ourselves into the ground, or never take a moment to relax. On the contrary, I think it means that we should do our best to be fully present in each moment of our lives - both the quiet and the active.

I think a lot about what happens when people are gone - what will happen when I'm gone and I want to think that at the end of my life, whenever that may be, I'll be able to look back and be sure that I was part of something and that I did not stand by in ignorance of my connection to each living thing on this planet, living things that are all made up of the same tiny little atoms.



Much peace.

Subdivision :: Ani DiFranco

"Then suddenly I hear my guitar singin'
And so I just start singin' along
And somewhere in my chest
All the noise just gets crushed by the song."
-Ani DiFranco (from "imagine that")

So I know that adoration of Ani DiFranco isn't a universally shared pastime. And I know that sometimes it's hard to escape her cuz she's so doggone prolific and her music is so widely embraced in this twenty-something Western/progressive/hippy/GLBTA female subculture of ours.
But what can I say? I just had to post this one while I'm on this spirit guitarist kick cuz that's what Ani is!

For all the slapping, popping, ripping and knocking sounds that this woman gets out of a guitar, it's sometimes forgotten that she can also make it sing like few others can. It's also easy to see her music as one mountainous pile of songs since she has made more albums in 15 years than many musicians make in a lifetime. But I have to say that from my own experience, it's not the volume of Ani's work that astonishes me, but the intricacy of each song and how so many of them seem to fit my life like my clothing fits my body. And any artist who can do that ONCE, much less over and over again, has wicked-hella skills and deserves wicked-hella props.

This song is a clip from Ani's movie "Render". And I'm warning you now that this entry is gonna drip with sentiment because this particular song pulls miles out of my heart every time I hear it. The first time I saw this movie, I was at a place in my life where I was deeply in love with the act and atmosphere of growing up (a feeling that college life stirs in many people). And I remember how moved I was by the purple and gold grace of the Tiny Folksinger standing there and smiling to herself as her guitar literally sighs from chord to chord (listen to the first five chords and TELL me there's not a sigh in there!...right as the audience is screaming adorations at her)). And then she starts to dance and sway around the stage with the music in between verses! This song talks about some heavy stuff! It's not easy to stomach and it's really sad. But the way she delivers it seems so graceful to me that it's easier to sidestep the guilt and the alienation one might otherwise feel if someone was soapboxing this stuff.

The song isn't demanding that other people agree with what she's singing about. You don't even have to like the music! You don't even have to listen! But the way she's playing it seems to transcend preoccupations with such things. In this country, where the Music Business is playing God in it's own version of Survival of the Fittest and where so many musicians are pruned instead of nurtured and supported and where so much of the music is killed long before it even reaches our ears, it's easy to forget that music was birthed out of the need to share and give and express. It's easy to forget about the time before community became audience and songs became performances. There are songs that remind us of those origins - even in the midst of a concert that we traveled miles and paid money to see....maybe that's why we travel and pay in the first place. Anyway, this song is one of those for me.

SUBDIVISION::ANI DIFRANCO

white people are so scared of black people.
they bulldoze out to the country, and put up houses on little loop-d-loop streets.
and while america gets its heart cut right out of its chest,
the berlin wall still runs downmain street separating east side from west.

and nothing is stirring, not even a mouse, in the boarded up stores and the broken down houses, so they hang colorful banners off all the street lamps just to prove they got no manners, no mercy, and no sense.

and i wonder then what it will take for my city to rise.
first we admit our mistakes and then we open our eyes. the ghost of old buildings are haunting parking lots in the city of good neighbors that history forgot.

i remember the first time i saw someone lying on the cold street, i thought, "i can't just walk past you, this can't just be true."
but i learned by example to just keep moving my feet.
it's amazing the things that we all learn to do.

so we're led by denial like lambs to the slaughter, serving empires of style and carbonated sugar water and the old farmroad's a four-lane that leads to the mall and my dreams are all guillotines waiting to fall

and i wonder then what it will take for my country to rise.
first we admit our mistakes and then we open our eyes.
'til nation's last taker succumbs to one last dumb decision and america the beautiful is just one big subdivision.

Rock Paper Scissors :: Ani DiFranco

so i went to an ani difranco concert in baltimore recently and while i was there, i purchased another official bootleg cd. she makes these official bootlegs of live shows she does all over the world and the one i got was from madison, wisconsin in 2004.

most of the bootlegs have very similar playlists, but every so often you'll find one that has a new song or a song that is old but sounds different b/c it's live and she's just by herself.

yesterday, i was walking to campus and then later to/from work listening to it. it's a good cd! she's really talkative and friendly and happy sounding...even when she's about to play a sad song. it's just a good cd.

i digress...

she played rock paper scissors and i was floored. it was a revamped version and it totally was hott.i was having a sort of shitty day yesterday for various reasons, mostly due to the fact that this break up with the lady has been more of a rollercoaster in terms of how i'm dealing and how i feel about the situation in general. yesterday was a pissy day.

and then rock paper scissors came on. i listened carefully to the words (like a good ani disciple) and found myself relating a LOT to the song and the song's message. throughout this entire breakup process, i have turned to ani to find a way to grieve, heal, process, move on, etc. i don't know what i'd do if i didn't have this music.

i think i would go insane. i don't have time for a therapist, and my friend's aren't always going to be available for me to bitch/cry/talk things through with them. but i have my music, and enough time by myself to listen and work things out.

below are the lyrics to the song. i couldn't find a decent clip of the version of this song, so i made an imovie and uploaded it to youtube.com! exciting, i know...but anyway, enjoy.

that's all.
the end.
love,
meghan.



Rock Paper Scissors::Ani DiFranco

it's rock paper scissors as to whether
i will get over you at all
it's hand against hand and both hands are mine
it's standing in a circular line
which is not to say that i am not also happy
a happy meal with a surprise inside
surprise surprise here's another bright light in your eyes
exposing all the stuff you're not calculating enough to hide

but this melancholy that i carry makes me feel so grown up
at my kitchen table doing shots of resignation
i never thought i'd see the day when i would say i give up
and break the stallions of my wildest expectations

but i do not want to know you this way
surrounded by so much pain
but how am i supposed to let go of you this way
like a bird into the sky of my brain?

i think i could accept all these dark colors
as just part of some bigger color scheme
if it wasn't for that drippy string quartet of sadness
underscoring each smiling scene
desire drags me right out of myself
a gas-soaked rope tied to a piece of coal
and i'm getting pretty good at looking at the bright side
while the flames rip along the sand and swallow me whole

but this melancholy that i carry makes me feel so grown up
at my kitchen table doing shots of resignation
i never thought i'd see the day when i would say i give up
and break the stallions of my wildest expectations

but i do not want to know you this way
surrounded by so much pain
but how am i supposed to let go of you this way
like a bird into the sky of my brain?

i think the main reason this song has had such an affect on me is because i'm not a quitter. i don't like to quit things. i don't give up easily. my relationship with the lady was a lot of work and we did alright for 3 years...which is a LONG time, when you're only 24. i never thought there would come a day when i would not want to try anymore. i thought i'd always want to be friends with her, no matter what. but i've come to this place where i'm ok being without her friendship in the same capacity. i've become ok with not talking to her like we used to, with not knowing how she is doing...which is weird. i still miss her, and i still care...a lot.

but at this point, i'm realizing that a friendship right now is probably not possible...because although i still care, i can't do this anymore. i can't keep trying to maintain this balance of dealing with the heartache of losing a relationship that i worked so hard to maintain...losing so much more than that relationship...i've had to change the way i envision my future now. i can't keep trying to force a balance between my hurt and my want for a friendship...even if it's just a minimal/basic friendship.

so when ani speaks of the melancholy she is experiencing and when she says 'i never thought i'd see the day when i would say i give up', it makes me get the shivers b/c i feel that way right now....i just can't let go of my hurt in order to be friends...i suppose the best thing i could do right now is just give it time and space...lots of time/space.

but i do not want to know you this way
surrounded by so much pain
but how am i supposed to let go of you this way
like a bird into the sky of my brain?