Of Sad Songs and Social Conscience

From the Austin American-Statesmen – February 10, 2005
by Brad Bucholz

Eliza Gilkyson and Patty Griffin are good friends, sisters in song. They have toured together, recorded together, shared a creative kinship through their music. Both released landmark albums in 2004 _ Gilkyson’s “Land of Milk and Honey” and Griffin’s “Impossible Dream.” And as fate would have it, both have been nominated for a Grammy Award … in the same category. So let us take a moment to acknowledge this happy little story _ the kind of Grammy story that has nothing to do with winners and losers, or celebrity, or what Alicia Keys intends to wear to the Sunday night award ceremony. Let us celebrate good Austin music and good Austin friends. Let us focus on Eliza and Patty’s shared affinity for sad songs and social consciousness.

“Patty? She will not be in L.A. for the ceremony, as it is her conviction that there’s too much hype in the culture of awards. . . . Better for the industry, she suggests, to spend time and money on music education for children.”

Eliza is the earthy sister, tall and bold, a daughter of the American West. Her best songs have dirt and grit and spines in them _ and if they were any softer, they wouldn’t be true. Eliza sees God in nature. She says exactly what she means. On stage, she’s quick to crack a joke about her own vanity. Then she’ll sing a song that will break your heart.

Patty is the ethereal sister, tiny and demure, a daughter of rural Maine. Her best songs have a misty, visceral quality _ and to step inside her CDs is to enter an envelope of rare emotional climates. Patty sees hope and humanity in a kite’s tail. She speaks in the language of metaphor. On stage, she’ll introduce a song with a whisper. Then she’ll sing a song that will break your heart.

Both women live quiet, simple lives in Austin _ Eliza in South Austin, Patty near Hyde Park. Both lavish their attention on tiny dogs. And both share a certain artistic courage, the ability to lay themselves naked, to show all manner of vulnerabilities, to express sorrow and doubt and anguish and regret and defiance, in the name of connection.

“Sometimes Griffin’s] songs are like expressionist paintings, where texture and mood, more than a literal image, tell the story of the work. You may not always ‘get’ the meaning of a Patty Griffin song, while all the while realizing you’re deeply moved by it.”

At the Grammys, Eliza Gilkyson and Patty Griffin are “competing” for Best Contemporary Folk Album. It is not a prime-time, call-the-winner-to-the-stage Grammy category. All the same, it is one of great integrity, a category that consistently honors music that thinks and feels, music that honors a writerly voice. Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Emmylou Harris have all won this Grammy. So, too, have Shawn Colvin, Nanci Griffith and Lucinda Williams _ singer-songwriters with deep Austin connections.

Eliza makes it very clear that she has no expectation of winning the prize. (“I’m the long shot,” she says. “This will be Patty’s win.” ) Yet Eliza plans to attend the ceremony. It is her first nomination, and it’s a sweet one, too, for it brings a measure of national attention and respect to an artis who first began performing and recording in Austin more than 20 years ago .

“This may be the only time this will happen to me,” says Eliza, who grew up in Southern California, the daughter of the late folk songwriter Terry Gilkyson. “I owe it to myself to go and enjoy it.”

Patty? She will not be in L.A. for the ceremony, as it is her conviction that there’s too much hype in the culture of awards. Patty didn’t go two years ago, either, when she was nominated for “1,000 Kisses.” Better for the industry, she suggests, to spend time and money on music education for children. Patty even declined to talk about Eliza, and the craft of song, on the occasion of the Grammys. Nothing personal, she says. It’s just her policy not to “do media” for awards shows.

These sisters of song are very different people. Eliza is as open as Patty is intensely private. But this difference is actually what makes their musical story more compelling, as we know these two women see a bit of themselves in each other.

“I think our friendship came about through mutual appreciation that we were both really pushing our envelope as individuals,” says Eliza. “Kind of self-discovery. Kind of like, ‘I see you over there. You’re on a very similar path as me, and you have your own way of expressing it.’ That’s why it’s amusing, really, that we’re both nominated at the same time.”

Griffin is a great writer _ and not just of words and couplets. Her command of tone and imagery gives her music its ethereal depth. Sometimes her songs are like expressionist paintings, where texture and mood, more than a literal image, tell the story of the work. You may not always “get” the meaning of a Patty Griffin song, while all the while realizing you’re deeply moved by it.

“Patty is the queen of that, really in the way she taps into the mystery, that kind of awesome other-ness,” says Eliza. “She may be using a vehicle that might be about a relationship, or a person in her life. But you sense that you’re standing on the brink of the great unconscious. I don’t know anyone who goes there more fearlessly than Patty.

“Her music just keeps unfolding for you. It will meet you as deep as you want to go. And that’s a beautiful and rare thing.”

Eliza had long admired Patty’s albums. But traveling on the road with Griffin _ opening the show, for a time, during the “1,000 Kisses” album tour of 2003 _ gave Eliza a heightened appreciation of Patty’s artistic command.

“I’d go out (into the audience) after every show and just sit there and allow myself to go on that trip,” says Eliza. “And it amazed me, the way the music would draw me back night after night. She takes you to a place _ and she holds you there.

“It’s not for the faint of heart, you know, to go riding around in there. But I do feel it’s the artist’s job to make you feel safe in a land of danger. It’s like, ‘How do you find your waty into this place where anything could happen?’ But at the same time, it’s safe to expose the nerve.”

Eliza and Patty have a deep affinity for the sad song; it’s part of their emotional makeup. At the start of her singing career, Griffin once failed an audition for a Downy fabric-softener jingle because her voice sounded “too sad.” No one uses imagery of funerals and shrouds more boldly. “I know a cold as cold as it gets,” she sings on the “Impossible Dream” album. And we believe her. …

On stage, Eliza will joke about her own inability to “do whimsy” and then launch into “Tender Mercies,” with its opening image of a suicide bomber: “Across the world she tapes explosives to her chest, steps into a shopping mall.” Eliza’s sad songs often feature characters on the other side of pain _ wounded, fallible, but wiser, too. She’s the rare artist in contemporary song thatwho digs deeply into psychological nuance.

The theme that unites Gilkyson’s muscular “Land of Milk and Honey” and Griffin’s moody “Impossible Dream” is longing. Both artists sing about an awareness of separateness, and the desire to connect with the elusive: Wisdom. Solace. Humanity. Peace on Earth. The great link uniting Gilkyson’s muscular “Land of Milk and Honey” and Griffin’s moody “Impossible Dream” is an undeniable sense of longing. Both voices sing of an awareness of separateness, and a desire to connect with the elusive : Wisdom. Humanity. Grace. Peace on Earth.

“Eliza has a lot of that Townes Van Zandt quality, when Townes was younger,” says Ray Wylie Hubbard, who just recorded a version of Gilkyson’s “Beauty Way” on his latest CD. “Townes’ songs always had a lot of depth and weight. Eliza’s songs are like that, too. Her lyrics just reach out and grab you by the throat. Her soul just pours out of her. And yet: She’s hilarious on stage! She takes herself lightly, you know?

“I always feel enlightened when I hear an Eliza song. And the motivating thing about Eliza and her music is what she can contribute to life. You know, she’s not one of these people who says, ‘What can I get?’ It’s actually about what she can give, and contribute to humankind right now.”

Both Eliza and Patty address the Iraq war on their albums, though Gilkyson plays her hand face up, referring to little men in the White House, while Patty works with allusions involving kites and Colosseums. The two sing together on behalf of peace to close Gilkyson’s album, joining Mary Chapin Carpenter and Iris DeMent on a long-lost Woody Guthrie anthem titled “Peace Call.”

Eliza felt compelled to write several songs about current events on “Land of Milk and Honey” _ not because she wanted to do “political” material, but because the build-up to war in 2003 and the ensuing invasion were breaking her heart. It was impossible to separate that pain from the music.

“The human condition is my issue. That’s been the case with me all along,” says Gilkyson. “This is not a happy time. It is not a mindless time. While I’m experiencing a deep satisfaction in my life right now, there is at the same time a sense of woefulness in the human story. It’s on my mind. I’m preoccupied with it. I don’t think I’m a real fun person to be around right now.” And here she starts to laugh. “Because I’m worried!”

Hubbard recognizes the soul of his friend in the words. “There’s an old quote I like: The opposite of injustice isn’t justice. It’s love,” says Hubbard. “Eliza sees in this world that the correct response to injustice is love. Because she cares. She feels it. It’s not sympathy _ it’s an empathy she has that allows her to see through other people’s eyes, to know their pain.”

Two great souls. Two great albums. On Sunday night, the winner in this Grammy category is clearly Austin. We are richer for their presence, these two sisters of song.