A little blast from the past, which I’ve been really in the mood for the last couple days…
Fixing Her Hair – Ani DiFranco
Everyone plays the guitar, but it’s just a completely different instrument in her hands, especially back in those early years. The staccato picking style makes gives every note so much more force and yet it all sounds so sparse and simple. But if it’s so simple how come none of the other folk singers in the world ever managed to sound like this?
And, if there was any doubt of her genius, there’s this verse which just utterly disarms me:
He says he loves her
He says he’s changing
And he can keep her warm
And she sits there like America
Suffering through slow reform
But she’ll never get back the time
And the years sneak by
One by one
She is still playing the martyr
I am still praying for revolution
It’s one of the saddest songs I’ve ever heard, but also one of the most beautiful. And the poetry of it… “She sits there like America, suffering through slow reform.” Who else could write that line?
The thing is, it’s not even really one of my favorites by her, which only goes to show how ridiculously great Ani is.