Amy's most late album features run-aways, redeemers and ravens, seeking deliverance in an alt-country style.

12 MP3 Songs
FOLK: Modern Folk, COUNTRY: Country Folk

Deliverance Songs


Details:
Amy Martin's "most late recording, Deliverance, speaks to themes of secrete recommended in the style But deliverance in Martin's music is not gained on the cheap. What, for example, is the cost of unbridled freedom to communities and satisfying relationships?

In 'Away,' Martin sings of the desire to flee the constraining gaze of small-town life, only to discover that the town has woven itself into her being: 'Walking down the street in Polo, South Dakota. It's like being on TV. Everybody wants to see - 'What's she wearing, where's she going, who does she think she is?' I'm going to get away. ... It don't matter how much I wash them, my fingerprints are full of South Dakota. It don't matter how far I run, it will always be under my skin. I'm gonna get away ... .'

'Born in the Country' could be a companion song, the parent-eye view of the child's departure from her rural community roots: 'All God's children, born in the country, moving to the city. They take with them the wealth of our land, quickly squandered on trifles and sin. My own dear child she used to run wild in the pastures. Come home, my child, come home. Leave your city ways, leave your troubles in town, and come home.'

'Raven's Wings' brings to mind the Indigo Girls' 'Closer to Fine,' with its philosophical inquiry into meaning and direction. Except that Martin finds her answers not by turning from the questions, but by close observation of the natural world - the liberation of ravens or the wisdom of the forest: 'I've been having conversations about will and desire. Sometimes you've gotta stoke it, sometimes you gotta fight the fire. I've been listening to the forest and I'm trying to learn, 'cause it knows just when to rest and when to let itself burn. I love to watch the ravens making spirals in pairs. It's feathers and faith meeting the grace of the invisible air. They just fling themselves wide open and jump into the sky. It's a radical trust that gives us the freedom to fly.'

'Raspberry Vine' is an invitation to experience, perils and all, that which can't be realized by the imagination alone: 'God bless a new-found love / As tangled as a raspberry vine / Red ripe fruit, waiting to be plucked / But the little green thorns will take you by surprise / Still, a berry on the tongue beats a bushel in your mind.'"

-John Friedrich
The River City Reader (IA/IL Quad Cities)