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With Peace and Love, There's Magic Everywhere.
Author: Raine    Date: 12/22/2016 14:00:22

I am going to keep this one short this morning as we will be hitting the road shortly.

This will be my last blog before Christmas. I know I share it every year, in some place or another, but this year I wanted to put it here in this space because it means so much to me. You guys mean much to me as well.

First, this.
Filled with similarly wry lines, the song, an audience favorite since Williams recorded it on her 1996 album Mortal City, nevertheless evokes rumination on fractured families and societal ills in listeners, some of whom drill deeply into the psychology of the lyrics. The acoustic-based singer, who will perform the song at her annual concert, “Christians, Pagans and Other Hipsters,” Dec. 26 at the Bell House in Brooklyn, remembers one such devotee, a high-school boy, who came backstage after a concert. He had just attended a rally in response to a gay bashing and said he was deeply moved by the reference to a lesbian couple in the song. “To hear this song today, I just can’t stop crying,” Williams recalled him saying.

Nowadays, with queer anthems topping the pop charts, it may be difficult to understand the deep emotion behind that response. Williams, 48, has lived through that evolution, having been a pioneer of sorts at writing lyrics that countered entrenched notions of gender and sexuality. “A lot of my career success came because I was in communities where people were ahead of the curve with gender exploration,” said Williams, who toured tiny coffeehouses while attending Wesleyan University in the mid-’80s. She later lived in Northampton, Massachusetts, a liberal enclave, which, like many such neighborhoods of the time, did its share of questioning societal roles. “Northampton, where the women are strong and the men are defensive,” she used to joke.




Happy Solstice, Friends.

Raine
 

22 comments (Latest Comment: 12/22/2016 20:28:46 by Mondobubba)
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