Tell Me A Story

Beck--"Mexico" (mp3)
Bruce Springsteen--"Highway 29 (live)" (mp3)
Bobbie Gentry--"Ode To Billy Joe" (mp3)

The hardest type of song to write is the one that tells a story. You've got to get all of the elements in there--plot, character, etc.--plus you've got to make it fit the structure of the song, not only getting your tale to fit a rhyme scheme but also any kind of chorus you might have that hammers your theme home. To make matters more difficult, you have very, very few words with which to get your story told, and even though you can probably only sketch it out at best, I think most people want a story that's fresh and original.

Quite a challenge, I'd say.

Maybe it isn't the hardest kind of song to write, but I do think that it is the type that I most admire. Occasionally. Too many story songs break me quickly, especially if the stories are clunky or cliched. And, if the song is to be any good or successful at all, the story has to be one that you want to hear more than once or twice. That means there at least have to be parts of it that a listener looks forward to over and over--twists or special turns of phrase or line or image that produces a chuckle.

And so, I offer a few spectacular examples of the genre.

The Beck song, "Mexico," a little heard gem that came on a compilation of songs performed live at a radio station, almost doesn't sound like a Beck song at all. Just him and an acoustic guitar and a slacker tale of a guy and his friends who decide to commit a small-time hold-up at the McDonald's where the narrator used to work. The tale is full ironic, funny details. It's hard to know if it was intended or not, but the kind of careless guitar playing and twangy, off-key vocals fit the story to a "t."

Bruce Springsteen's "Highway 29" is an economical masterpiece of the genre. It's the story of a man who gets seduced into committing a crime by a woman, but as he ponders his fate, he realizes that "it was something in me" that causes him to do what he does. Springsteen also dispenses quickly with any obvious parts of the story:

It was a small town bank,

It was a mess,

Well, I had a gun,

You know the rest.

That resignation pervades the song until its a powerful, but inevitable, conclusion. It's a song where every word counts.

Probably my favorite story song for over 40 years now has been "Ode To Billy Joe," by Bobbie Gentry. And, like the rest of the world, I still don't know what the heck it means. But Gentry's song is narrated by a young woman trying to keep her composure, while her rural Mississippi family is sitting at dinner and mulling over the news that "Billie Joe McAlister jumped off the Talahatchee Bridge."

The mystery? Well, over the course of dinner, the mother reveals to her daughter that she ran into the preacher, who saw "a girl who looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge/ And she and Billie Joe was throwin' somethin' off the Talahatchee Bridge." Many have speculated as to what that something was--everything from a ring to a baby to the innocence of the '60's--but no one has yet come up with a satisfactory answer that I know of. So I keep listening to her tell the story.

I'm not aware that Beck's "Mexico" is available anywhere, but the other two songs are available at Itunes.

Rockin' In The Toys R Us

Jason and The Scorchers--"When The Angels Cry" (mp3)
Dan Zanes--"No Sky" (mp3)

I don't know how I feel about rock and rollers who look to extend or improve their careers by switching to the children's market.

There was an article in the paper yesterday about Dan Zanes, who has been one of the most successful to make the switch. I don't know that much about him--he was in the Del Fuegos, who I never really listened to, but I did get his solo cd, which I liked, even though no one else did, apparently. So, having children led him to switch is career to writing children's songs, and now it's become very lucrative for him. I guess that's a good thing.

In the Chattanooga Times Free Press article, he says, "The hours are different, the band is better, but the spirit is the same. We're playing music we have an emotional attachment to and we want everyone to be a part of it and have it feel like a party."

For kids. Kind of like a wedding singer for toddlers. You sense, I'm sure, a slight, slight derisive tone here.

On the one hand, the first several waves of children's music were such shit, that when my children were that age, I could barely stand to listen to it. In those days, it seemed like of you were going to sing for kids, your name had to end with the "ee" sound--Barney, Raffi, Yanni, whatever. And the music, sung either in an annoying mock-animal voice like a chipmunk or a dinosaur or sung in a mugging, super-smiling, over-the-top manner couldn't bridge the gap between the young'uns who would chant the stuff like Moonies and the adults who alternated between grimacing and getting a little programmed themselves.

In my humble opinion, the kid-friendly versions of classic rock songs weren't much better. So along come the new breed, guys like Zanes and one of my favorite rockers, Jason Ringenberg, formerly of Jason and the Scorchers, and now performing under the moniker, Farmer Jason.

These guys bring credibility with them. Their songs are more likely traditional tunes or authentic updates, and you don't mind listening along a bit.

But here comes the philosophical question: do kids really need dumbed-down or gently-interpreted versions of real music? Last summer, I gave my friend John a burn of my favorite songs by the Sheds, an unsigned band from around Cincinnati that I discovered on another blog. A few listens of that and his kids were clamoring to hear the songs again and again. Now, granted, their favorite song was about a bunch of musicians meeting up at a trailer to get wasted and maybe playing a few tunes, but his whole car would be singing along: "Kind bud, can I get another beer?/ There's a cooler in the front and a cooler in the rear."

More to the point, I guess, is whether you maintain your musical integrity when you switch to children's music. I fully understand that a guy's got to eat, and if all you've done to earn money is to play music, it's kind of hard to switch to insurance when you're 42 years old. I think I'm probably being romantic when I imagine starving musicians sticking to their "rock and roll code," whatever that is, even as the market dries up around them. But I can still picture Jason and the Scorchers up on that stage, spitting out "Gold Ball and Chain," heavy metal lead guitarist Warner Hodges wailing away, one cigarette in his mouth and another pinched between the strings on the head of his guitar, beers flowing, people pushed up against the stage, each drumbeat or chord robbing me of a little more hearing.

Maybe this is why Neil Young once suggested that "it's better to burn out than to fade away." Hell, even Jerry Garcia put out a children's record. Kind of.

F^#k Abstinence! Help Me Jeebus!

Sin So Well - Rebekah (mp3)
The Way the Wind Blows - Rush (mp3)

Ninety-five percent of Americans are deflowered before their wedding night. Only five out of every 100 of us make it to the altar as virgins. Mormons, atheists, Catholics, the Amish, Moonies, Protestants, agnostics, Jews, blacks, honkeys, dwarves, all of us.

This ain't the first time I've carped about this topic. Or even the second time. It won't be the last. For every single uncontrollable lusty urge we adults have, teenagers have, like, 200 of them. They have one for, like, everytime they say "like." Except they're expected to fight every single one of those urges, where we can go wake our spouse or significant other and have quick emergency sex. [NOTE: I've never done this, but I've read about it. OK, I've never even read about it, but we still have more options than teenagers.]


So long as there's millions of jackasses with blinders on who prefer their fairytale pretend 14 A.D. world where dinosaurs roamed with St. Paul over the one where actual people with blood and reproductive organs happen to reside, this topic will continue to fascinate me.

They act like Jesus was this unsympathetic block of ice who only spoke to or tolerated perfect people. If I weren't such a Christian, I'd want to bash their skulls with a dildo.

My dander got raised this time because of two recent stories. First, I just got around to reading the Newsweek issue that includes an article about the fading strength of the "Abstinence-Only" sex-ed movement. Then, in a conversation with a co-worker last week, I learned about a TV show called -- and I'm not even kidding -- "Purity Balls."

Stop chuckling. If you would like to know more about ... um ... Purity Balls, you can read a New York Times article, or if that rag is too socialistic and liberal for you, read the Glamour magazine article.

Mama doesn't like when I sin so well
Heaven's kinda far but I swear that when I'm comin' it's close
'Cuz I sin so well
Lead us not into temptation
Oh but what a way to go...

If Promise Rings rate a 7 out of 10 on the Awkard 'n' Icky Scale, then Purity Balls go to 11. It's one level of odd for a young lass to make a pledge to her Creator and wear a ring to symbolize that promise. It's an altogether different universe of FUBAR for a girl and her father to exchange vows.

The father vows to protect his daughter's chastity until she marries?!? Duuuuude, the only way in hell you can be absolutely certain to make good on that promise is to lock her up and eat the key (in a very non-sexual way). Who the f*#k do these guys think they are, Superman?? Do they have super-hearing? Can they hear the zipper on their daughter's jeans as she sits in her boyfriend's basement on the other side of town? And can they fly at the speed of sound over to his house, vibrate through the walls, and rescue her before that damn boy's fingers and other digits can do the walking?

"Are you ready to war for your daughter's purity?" Did a pastor really say that? Did he say it out loud? As if chastity could be protected like Fort Knox? As if a teenager's vagina can be defended like Iraq? What would a "troop surge" look like?

This pastor said it to a room full of men who, odds are, impregnated their wives prior to their being married or otherwise had sex with multiple women before settling down with the Missus. (OK, there's always those few dorks who couldn't get laid in a morgue who can, thanks to rose-colored glasses and revisionist history, look back on their virginity as some badge of honor, even though they had absolutely no say in it whatsoever.)

God might have to forgive me, but I just don't think He wants us to bury our head and ignore reality. Humans are not ostriches. That's why God made ostriches.

We can only go the way the wind blows
We can only bow to the here and now
Or be broken down blow by blow

What does it do to a child to be raised by a father who actually thinks he can control her virginity? What does it do when she believes having sex banishes her from the grace of God? How many Bristol Palins must there be before we stop shaming kids into dark corners in abandoned houses and right into teenage pregnancies?

Jesus wasn't trying to program us to walk into walls, like we're malfunctioning robots or something, too stupid to adjust to the shifting sands of time. Deep down, these people -- who are my brothers and sisters in faith no matter how much it pains myself or them -- know it. They know it because most of them work on Sundays (or condone those who do), and most of them happily condone the touching of a dead pig on Saturdays and Sundays, not to mention allllll that tasty, scrumptious, pulled pork BBQ! If you want more fun examples, just watch that oh-so-awesome clip from The West Wing.

White weddings were a brilliant idea for kids who married at 12 and 13. But Americans today get married, on average, at 25 years old. Sorry, but I don't believe Jesus ever intended people to wait 1/3 of their lives and stave off the most insanely hormonal phase of their lives anymore than God intended to make Sunday football punishable by death. Otherwise, Jeff Gordon is going to hell for failing to keep the Sabbath holy every time he gets in that damn car.

To SuperChristians, that makes me The "R" Word: a Relativist.
In SAT-speak, Relativist : Evil :: Uppity : "N Word"
Apparently, when they call someone a "relativist" is, well, relative.

Extremist religion -- particularly conservative Christianity -- is going to either be the death of all of us, or it will end up choking on its own vengeful angry bile. What do they care if they destroy us, since they're so hellbent on getting to heaven, and so very confident that they're the most specialest superduperest Chosen People among all of God's people? They've got nothing to lose, in their minds. Meanwhile, I'm happy to wait a while, enjoy the ride before having to step onto that great escalator to the sky.

Take these Purity Balls and shove 'em. And stop exchanging vows with your daughters; that's just sick, dudes. Besides, she's just in it for the bling of the ring. And just like her Mommy and Daddy, she ain't gonna deserve that white dress she wears when you give her away.

"Sin So Well" is from Rebekah's only album, Remember to Breathe. "The Way the Wind Blows" is from Rush's 18th and most recent studio album, Snakes + Arrows. Both can be purchased through iTunes or Amazon.com's mp3 site.

Carry Me Ohio

Sun Kil Moon--"Carry Me Ohio" (mp3)
Crosy, Stills, Nash, and Young--"Ohio(live)" (mp3)
The New Frontiers--"Look At Miss Ohio" (mp3)

Fox News called it first. Ohio for Obama. Until that moment, I don't think I really believed that it could happen. But once Ohio went for Obama, I knew.

Ohio.

Ohio did not really want to be part of the Union during the Civil War. Many of its citizens were in favor of slavery and it is no accident that even today Cincinnati is one of our most racially-trouble cities.

Ohio.

I've lived there. In Cambridge, Ohio from 1964 to 1967. Though Cambridge is a major fast food stop along I-70 today, when I lived there, there was no interstate, and a trip to Columbus to shop at the big department stores took over three hours across backroads. John Glenn was from right near Cambridge and had a parade through town after his first space flight. I also saw Aunt Jemima on tour when I lived in Ohio; she came to Cambridge to a huge pancake supper, and I was one of the lucky ones who got her autograph. Or an actress playing her. Really.

Ohio.

My grandfather fled an abusive stepmother and went to Akron, Ohio at age 14 to work in a tire factory there. My father's alma mater is Ohio University; my daughter currently attends Kenyon. Yesterday, she cast her first vote for president, and, lucky her, she is in that swing state, so I was able to call her and say, "Your vote made a difference!"

Ohio.

Growing up in Pittsburgh, just over the border, Ohio meant one thing to me during my teenage years: Kent State. The shootings on May 4, 1970 were so close that they dominated the news for a long time, and the place became a couple of photographic images in my mind that made it seem like some other country. Of course, then the Steelers entered their glory years, and their great middlelinebacker Jack Lambert graduated from Kent State, so it became a normal name again. Sort of.

Ohio.

Last night, we knew Obama needed Ohio, that it would mean everything to the evening if he could take that state that had been the focus of so much campaigning, so much energy, and so much energy. And so, to turn things in our favor at our Obama-watching party, our friend Jeff opened two cans of Skyline Chili that he had been saving for who knows how long (it tasted like it must have been several years), and he set out shot glasses and he filled each glass with a "shot" of Skyline Chili and together, we raised our glasses (even my vegetarian wife) and downed those lukewarm slugs of grainy meat and bland, oddly-spiced sauce to rouse cosmic support for Obama's chances in..........

Ohio.

Last night, Ohio got it right. I had been up there a few weeks ago, had mentioned on this blog the battle I saw going on there as its citizens tried to figure which direction their important state would go. And so now it has become a new symbol for me: when Ohio said it would happen for Obama, after 22 months of hoping, waiting, and worrying, I finally knew, once and for all, that it was true.

"Carry Me Ohio" comes off the Uncut magazine sampler, Americana 2004, my vote for cd of that year. The live version of "Ohio" is from 4-Way Street, a classic live album my brother used to lift weights to when I was thirteen. The New Frontier's cover of Gillian Welch's song is available on any number of blogs.

Pinch Me

I Want to Take You Higher - Sly + the Family Stone (mp3)
Pop Goes the Weasel - 3rd Bass (mp3)
Dare - Stan Bush (mp3)

Written mostly unedited, whilst intoxicated and celebrating late into the night...


Two things came to pass on Tuesday, November 4, 2008:

1. A person of color has assumed the highest position in our country.
2. The gross and stubborn hubris of the Republican Party was finally and fully acknowledged.

An entire race of people in America will wake up tomorrow with a slightly more positive view about life, about our country, about our world. Their tears are genuine, and their joy is pure. Voters like myself and millions like me get to celebrate with them. We didn't vote for a black man. We voted for a man we sincerely believed would take us and our country in a different, better direction. And we voted against a party -- not a man -- that valued power and the abuse thereof over principle and duty. Barack Obama has, over the course of more than a year, taken a very specific and consistent tack and sailed it. Some can call it smoke and mirrors, but it's the most consistent collection of smoke and mirrors you'll see in any candidate in recent history.

If the Democrats fuck up their chance in the next two or four years, if they overstep their bounds and do anything approaching what extremist conservatives tried so hard to tell everyone, you're damn straight voters will make them pay.

John McCain's concession speech was befitting someone who wanted so badly to be a "Maverick." He did that speech the right way. I even think it was sincere.

This election never had anything to do with John McCain. My conservative friends and relatives might not have been aware of it. Maybe they were too distracted by their accusations of a "liberal media elite." Maybe they pacified their beliefs with words like "socialism" and "terrorism" and "plumber." Sarah Palin may have made what could have been close into a blowout, but it wasn't about her, either.

The underrated Harrison Ford film "Presumed Innocent" has one of the great final lines of recent film history: "There was a crime. There was a victim. And there is punishment." That line is the story of the Republican Party in the 21st Century.

One day, when the Republican base is not so full of venomous spite and so purely in a "with us or against us" mantra, they might even realize that it wasn't McCain and Palin that lost. It was them. It was their vitriol and their lust to win without compromise or negotiation. Our country is about getting along, about working together. Conservative Christians and the ultra-rich don't want to work together. They want to make the rules, and they want everyone else to cower, to follow, to hide. Anything less than total dominance is considered failure.

Thank God they failed. I hope it takes them a couple of decades to realize how close to the sun they flew. I hope it takes them decades to realize that their Politics of the Immovable Object is pathetic, outdated, embarrassing and... well, un-American.

When Bush beat Kerry in what was percieved as a "mandate," Dubya earned 286 electoral votes. Barack Obama will fall just shy of Clinton's numbers in 1992, as electoral votes go. That bastard -- can I call him that?? -- rode two very close victories as if they were "mandates" for him to take a big ol' shit on the heads of anyone and everyone he and his cronies wanted. I guess conservatives slept well with it, because they didn't do much to stop it. They mostly cheered him on.
 
Well, your day of reckoning arrived on Tuesday night. You'd best eat that poop sandwich and digest it, because that's the only way you'll learn how terribly off-course you took yourselves and your country. We cannot, as a country, come together if you won't budge from your perch.
 

I hope you will. I hope you'll consider it. As I type this, I'm watching Barack and Joe Biden welcome their families. I'm looking at a First Familiy unlike any we've ever seen, unlike any most of us have ever allowed ourselves to imagine. I haven't cried tears of joy like this since I first saw Corey Haim's football team give him a standing ovation in Lucas. I can't imagine feeling a more powerful rush of optimism for my country, for our country, in a more dire time. The Obama family is enough to soften a lot of very crusty cynicism. The air is suddenly different.

Maybe some Americans will hope he fails. Maybe you're one of them. If so, I hope he proves you wrong. I hope he listens to your concerns, like he says he will. I believe he wants to be your President, too. And that belief only makes me cry harder.

And the less I hear the god-forsaken word "mandate" -- a word Dubya has forever tarnished -- the better off we'll be these next four years.

Who can limit themselves to just one, two, or three songs in such a triumphant and exhilerating moment?? "It Can Happen" by Yes, "Beautiful Day" by U2, "The Rising" by Bruce, and a whole flock of songs only slightly less cheesy than "Dare" (which comes from The Transformers soundtrack from the 1987 animated movie).

Votin' The 60's

Dinosaur Jr.--"Out There" (mp3)
Dinosaur Jr.--"Start Choppin'" (mp3)

Even though John McCain and I are about 20 years apart in age, I feel like we're both looking at this election from the perspective of the 1960's.

For him, it seems to be about his own awful years in a prison camp and about being part of a war that we did not win and about being a (not so) hotshot fighter pilot who leads with his bravado and about surrounding himself with attractive women and about still seeing the world through the lens of the good guys vs. the Communists. McCain begins so many of his assertions with "I know how to...." that you'd think he was the genie from the Mr. Clean commercial or some other magic world where wars are easy to win and economies are easy to fix and the problems of people's lives can be solved by calling them "My friends." The McCain 60's are in many ways like the tv show Mad Men where chasing tail is the ultimate goal and products and dreams are advertised and sold with no particular interest in whether you or anyone else believes in them. It's all simply a matter of figuring out what people think they want and finding a way to give it to them or to convince them that they need it.

As always, when we look back at the past, those seem like simpler times, even though they weren't.

How ironic that television, that medium that made advertising king, also showed us far too much of the Vietnam War and destroyed our faith in America's ability to "fix" everything the way John McCain wants to now. Yes, the Bush administration was able to once again sell us a false bill of goods in Iraq, but based on this pattern, at least we've got about 40 years before the societal amnesia kicks in again.

For me, coming to the 60's a few years too late, I'm feeding off of a different kind of mysticism. Not brave enough or in touch enough to be the kid wearing the black armband for the Moratorium in 1969, not radical enough to be the kid in sixth grade who refused to stand for or to say The Pledge of Allegiance, I became enamored of the 60's through the music and the movement. I still want the 1960's dream of the Youngblood's "Get Together" and the promise of the Civil Rights movement and the vision of an America that must be traveled to be believed and to be understood. I still want the America where you could somehow point out the corruption and the cynicism through an optimistic lense, sitting upon a tripod of activism and awareness and belief that something could be done. I've never forgotten that there was an America that turned firehoses and police dogs on its citizens, that sent out the National Guard with loaded weapons to kill protesters. So, yeah, I'm kinda skewed and, yeah, hippie bullshit, I know.

But, that's the 60's for you. And that's where I think John McCain and I are coming from. Nixon gave him "Peace With Honor" when he wanted to win and he can't get past that; Nixon gave me "Peace With Honor" but by then I had become a teen and it was the '70's and I knew we never should have been fighting in the first place.

A student asked me today why I am voting for Obama. I told him it was because of a single issue. "I was opposed to the war from the start," I told him. "And, though with less certainty, Obama has been opposed to it, too." I know the war is off of the radar right now, but that's what's driven me for the last 6 years when I thought it was wrong and now I still think it's wrong and I don't believe in surges or anything else that the ad men have to sell me about it. I guess that I'm still a child of the 60's.

Both Dinosaur Jr. songs come from the CD, Where You Been? available at Itunes. May they rock Obama to victory.

Listen w/o Prejudice: Indigo Girls

The second in a series. Click Here for the preamble.

They're lesbians. They're not particularly attractive lesbians.

I've never heard music lovers say they don't listen to David Bowie because he shared a little "Modern Love" with Freddie Mercury (or maybe Freddie was his China Girl). I've never heard normal people say they don't listen to Motley Crue because they object to a band who has screwed more females than the population of Delaware.

Your guitarist can snort his father's ashes and openly admit to it, and millions will line up to buy $100 tickets to your concert.People in the '80s wore FRANKIE SAY RELAX! shirts and didn't seem to mind that the entire song is about a dude who loves to blow other dudes.

So I'm not sure why it's so easy to dismiss this one particular band because they kiss a other girls. Meanwhile, Katy Perry and that TATU group can do it, sing about it, and reap a profit solely because of it.

Perhaps I'm different from the norm, but I really don't confuse the artists with the art. Celebrities can stump for certain politicians or certain charities, but I pay them no heed. If Tom Cruise wants to snort L. Ron Hubbard's ashes, that won't change the fact that I mostly enjoy the dude's movies. Same goes for musicians and authors. I don't enjoy Hemingway less because he was a misogynistic suicidal alcoholic.

So why is it somehow acceptable to dismiss the Indigo Girls because they're unattractive lesbians?

Fortunately for me, I fell in love with them before I ever knew about that stuff. I saw Emily Saliers and Amy Ray open up for R.E.M. in Murphreesboro, Tenn., on the Green tour in late 1988. I honestly didn't pay attention to their performance at first. Just two girls and two acoustic guitars. Big whup.

But at about their fourth song, Michael Stipe walked out on stage and sang with them. "Kid Fears." And nothing makes a crowd pay attention to the opening act quite like someone from the main act coming out to perform with them. The remainder of their set kept my attention. Six months later, I owned the cassette of what I mistakenly thought was their first album, and who couldn't love "Closer to Fine"?

Lyrical brilliance, exquisite harmonies, and a down-home feel that felt like they were playing in your living room. These were magnetic qualities upon first listen, and they continue to be the key draws of their music. If fairly stripped-down, mostly folk and country-folk music ain't your thing, I doubt any of their music will knock your socks off. If you don't feast off of brilliant lyrical turns of phrase that frequently comes with religious references or allusions to their bipolar Southern heritage, I doubt this band would convert you.

And that's fine. I'm OK with someone not liking music because they don't like the music. It's just annoying when the hypocrisy of values or personality conflicts becomes the excuse, because these judgments are almost always restricted to when they're convenient.

The single greatest weakness of the Indigo Girls is that their songs lose potency in mixes. Their songs tend to get lost in the shuffle, it seems. Ironically, though I own every Indigo Girls album, they almost never show up on mix CDs I make for others. Their songs rarely feel like the "fit" in with the other songs I've chosen.

The Indigo Girls make songs that are like a hidden country creek with clear water that goes deeper than you'd think. They make you wanna sit down, take your shoes off, roll up your jeans, and stick your feet in, leaning back and soaking up the sunlight on your face. It's tough to savor that lazy moment if My Chemical Romance or The Hold Steady has the next song. (I did that for you, Nick!)

Although both women write equal numbers of songs on every album, I'm personally drawn to the subjects and tenderness of Emily Saliers' songs. Amy Ray tends to have rougher edges and harsher words, while Emily mines the timeless (some might say overdone) themes of lost loves and lost souls.

Lesbians yes, but those chicks can express an adult's broken heart better than just about anyone.

My All-Time Top 10 Indigo Girls Songs (in chronological order):

• Hey Jesus
• Closer to Fine
• Southland in the Springtime
• Watershed (mp3)
  
• Ghost
• Mystery
  
• Thin Line (mp3)
• Deconstruction
• Hope Alone (mp3)
• Come on Home (mp3)

Honorable Mention:Love Will Come to You, Gallileo, Least Complicated, Language or the Kiss, Shame on You, Cold Beer and Remote Control, Collecting You

All Indigo Girls albums can be purchased on iTunes or Amazon.com. If you want the single best album, go with Become You. If you want the most well-known ones, try their self-titled 1988 album or Rites of Passage. Their 1200 Curfews live 2CD concert is pretty awesome, too.