Long before Barbie belted out “Closer to Fine” on her vision quest to The Real World, the Indigo Girls were the soundtrack to my life, connecting deeply with my young unbroken soul.
It felt paradoxical, seeing Margot Robbie sing the song the same way I always have. On one hand, it took me back to simpler times, before I learned how heartbreak feels. But I also thought, Oh great, now it’s going to become “a thing.”
Given the popularity of the Barbie movie, I had a feeling the song would experience a resurgence, much like Kate Bush’s 1985 hit “Running Up That Hill” did in 2022 thanks to Stranger Things. (Side note: I was shocked to learn the song wasn’t originally a 2003 hit by the band Placebo. And I call myself a child of the eighties!) The downside of a revival is the overplay that can cause a song to lose its luster. Thus becoming: “a thing.” It’s why now, when Placebo’s version comes up on shuffle, I hit skip. It needs to sit on the shelf and gather dust for a bit.
I loved the idea of Barbie helping people discover the Indigo Girls; their themes are universal and enduring, and I’m all about a big tent. But I also felt my “if you know, you know” status starting to lose its stature. I don’t lay claim to a lot in life, so any decline, no matter how small, feels like an existential crisis. (AKA a gross overreaction. Item #87 to discuss with the therapist.)
So much in the Indigo Girls’ catalog spoke to me in my twenties. I still hold several songs close to my heart because of their timeless relevance. Being haunted by lost love in “Ghost.” Being open when it returns in “Love Will Come to You.” What a nurturing relationship looks like in “Power of Two.” As much as Alanis’s Jagged Little Pill captured my youthful angst, the Indigo Girls did so in a more soulful, less screamy way.
When I fantasize about fronting a band (I play no instruments, mind you), I picture myself as Amy Ray or Emily Sailers, jamming away on an acoustic or electric guitar, pouring my heart out to an audience of friends, family, and strangers.
I once made a Spotify playlist, “If I Were a Singer,” and filled it with a variety of Broadway musical showstoppers, deep cuts and popular songs by P!nk, and a heavy dose of Indigo Girls tracks. (Now that would be a concert.) The playlist has since been deleted, lost to a round of Swedish death cleaning. No one can know, I thought to myself. I mean, I’m supposed to be a writer and that’s not exactly the cleverest—is too a word!—title. I guess everyone knows now, but we shall not speak of it again!
As an Indigo Girls fan, “Closer to Fine” ranks high on my list. I discovered it late into my college years, and it hit home. I was exhilarated to break loose from the rigors of the standard education system and become an adult. The song summed it up perfectly:
I went to see the doctor of philosophy With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee He never did marry or see a B-grade movie He graded my performance, he said he could see through me I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind Got my paper and I was free
Not long after, as the realities of adulthood and shattered dreams set in, this verse followed suit:
I stopped by the bar at 3 A.M. To seek solace in a bottle or possibly a friend And I woke up with a headache like my head against a board Twice as cloudy as I'd been the night before And I went in seeking clarity
But my favorite lyric, and the one that still rings true, 35 years after the song’s release?
Well, darkness has a hunger that's insatiable And lightness has a call that's hard to hear
Those two lines were the screen saver on my monitor for months back in 1996. And now that I think about it, they’d make for a great caption to the tattoo I’ve been contemplating for years—a portrait of an old me trying to hold back a new me from moving on—the pull of the past, as I think of it.
Reminiscing about “Closer to Fine” took me further down the rabbit hole of their discography, where I rediscovered another of my favorites, one I couldn’t believe had slipped my mind. It didn’t even make it to the “playlist that shall not be named,” though I’ve sung along to it hundreds of times. I quickly made up for the oversight by adding it to my “Death Jamz” playlist.
Yes, I have a celebration of life mixtape. It’s to help with the planning, a gift to those I leave behind—since there likely won’t be a setlist from my world tour to pull from. And no, I wasn’t being “Ironic” when I chose songs like “Dig Down,” “Bury,” “Used to the Darkness,” “My Body,” and “Into Dust.” I was just adding songs I like. What that says about me, I’m not sure. (Item #176 for the therapist.)
I stumbled across the forgotten gem, a song called “Watershed,” and exclaimed to myself, “‘I haven’t heard this in FOR-EV-ER!”
Immediately, I hit play, bliss overtaking me when I heard the opening guitar chords. I proceeded to bellow (a la Margot Robbie) every single word, though it’d been at least ten years since I’d last heard it.
Twisted guardrails on the highway Broken glass on the cement A ghost of someone's tragedy How recklessly my time has been spent They say that it's never too late But you don't, you don't get any younger Well I better learn how to starve the emptiness And feed the hunger
I couldn’t believe the words resonated as deeply with me now in my fifties as they did in my twenties.
It all made sense with the next verse:
And there's always retrospect To light a clearer path Every five years or so I look back on my life And I have a good laugh You start at the top Go full circle round Catch a breeze Take a spill But ending up where I started again Makes me want to stand still
Yep. Every time I look back and evaluate my life, I find myself standing in the same spot wondering what it’s all for. Or as the song goes:
Up on the watershed Standing at the fork in the road You can stand there and agonize 'Til your agony's your heaviest load
I put the song on repeat, revisiting it over and over. The question popped into my head—what is a watershed, anyway? So, I Googled it: 1) an area or ridge of land that separates waters flowing to different rivers, basins, or seas, 2) a crucial dividing point, line, or factor.
Just like that, my affinity for the song became even clearer. I’ve been standing on the watershed of my life for nearly thirty years, paralyzed by the agony of my heaviest load: meaninglessness. What psychiatrist Irvin Yalom calls one of life’s four ultimate concerns, along with death, isolation, and freedom. (Me and the therapist are already working on this. She’s exhausted, believe me.)
I spent the rest of the evening hosting a private karaoke party from the living room couch, the dog and cats my only audience. (They moved to the bedroom mid-show, certainly because it was past bedtime and not to save their ears.) As I made my way through decades of tracks, nostalgic feelings flowed through me. It occurred to me that this is part of the magic of music: It follows us on our journey, at times sitting on the shelf gathering dust until it knows we’re ready.
As a curtain call, I sang out a verse from “Virginia Woolf”, the Indigo Girls’ introspective tribute to the writer:
So I know I'm all right Life will come and life will go Still I feel it's all right Cause I just got a letter to my soul And when my whole life is on the tip of my tongue Empty pages for the no longer young The apathy of time laughs in my face You say "each life has its place"
I’m learning mine does too.
So good!!
Goosebumps.