Indigo Girls: It's Only Life After All

You had too much to dream?

Good title.

-Hmm! -

- My finger's off the strings. - What's going on?

Hey, let's do it. I'll do it right this time, ready?

I think we should record the song talking

and everything and goofing around. Ready?

- No. - I'm not serious.

- I think we should go. -

Are you all casual, Emily?

Uh, yes.

You don't have anything like…

Nothing dressy.

-Nope. - Will it matter if…?

I honestly don't think it'll matter

'cause it's just you and me, you know, the way we are.

My friend Teague gave me this shirt. Look at that thing.

Sleeveless Western shirt.

Is that the craziest thing you've ever seen?

Who would wear that? Me.

You know, I would wear that.

Right. And how do you decide

about posing for your picture, for your albums and stuff?

-Bleh. -Oh, we don't decide,

we just, it's random.

-Just look at the camera. -It's very random.

-It's not fun. -Do a picture pose for us.

That's the picture pose.

I'm always supposed to look heavenward.

And then if we have to change positions, I'll go something like this.

- - This is cool.

I think they're in style.

What, motorcycle vests?

-Reflective vests. -Oh, really? Oh.

Yeah, like--

So again, reminding everybody

that I'm starting really weird and artsy,

and we can get as clean as we need to.

It's nice to have something different. Really nice.

Well I always get nervous 'cause sometimes people

just don't want all the weird stuff.

I like it. Do you like it?

Yeah, I pretty much love what Jeremy does.

- Me too. - Whatever it is.

- Well that means a lot. - You look good, Amy.

Cathy's like, "That's too '80s." The '80s are in.

How about the '90s though?

- How about them '90s? -How about them '90s?

Man, if I get to be in an Indigo Girls documentary,

that would make my college dreams come true.

What about your middle-aged man dreams?

I'm still a fan. No.

Like I'm obviously still a fan,

but they changed my life in college.

Fell in love to the Indigo Girls.

Hey, I was a baby and so were y'all.

-That's right. -We were all babies.

…94 in Atlanta. Again, the hot, humid weather.

Let's pay a visit to the latest big noise out of Georgia.

A folkish new female duo called the Indigo Girls.

Be advised, this is not folk music for wimps.

The Indigo sound is intense, it is hypnotic,

and we'll see if it captivates you.

Our next guests are natives of Atlanta, Georgia.

-Grammy-award winning duo… -Please welcome Indigo Girls!

I'm in love with them just like you are.

Here they are, the Indigo Girls! Whoo!

They're also tireless activists

for causes ranging from gun control to indigenous rights,

to, more recently, the removal of Confederate monuments.

You've both been out and proud since the early '90s.

This was a very different time.

There were not a lot of openly gay public figures.

But your roots are all about live performance,

and it's always a very connected experience.

They helped me understand who I was

and who I wanted to be.

The Indigo Girls completely saved my life.

Oh, I love green!

I love green. Should I sit in it?

- Yeah! - This is very exciting.

-You ready? -Hi, we're the Indigo Girls.

-Well, we should introduce ourselves. -Okay.

Should we introduce ourselves? Name by name?

- Okay. -Hi, I'm Emily.

-And I'm Amy. -And we're the Indigo Girls.

And you're watching VH1.

-I watch it too. -That okay?

- -

So, do you want me to just, like, not talk

and just pretend I'm alone?

Yeah, yeah, do whatever you would do.

Well, when people are around,

I'm so Southern that I feel bad about not engaging.

- Yeah. -

Tomorrow's recycling day.

But this is all Indigo stuff in here.

Got tapes and videos and film and all sorts of archives.

So I have like, tons of posters,

and, like, things like, um, like gold records.

You know, stuff like that.

And then I have these DVD kind of tapes.

Okay.

Oh, my god, I have, like, so many different formats.

2013.

'Cause I used to basically

carry a camera around everywhere we went.

By the way, that's Amy behind the camera.

Hi, how you doing? Who's this for?

Are we videotaping while we're doing this?

We're documenting for our futures.

Oh, good, this is like the rockumentary.

It's Spinal Tap, instead, it's the Indigo Girls.

- -

I really didn't think, like, we're taping everything,

and one day, it's all going to be used.

I thought more like, if I ever have kids,

they'll be able to see our lives.

I'm so thankful that Amy captured so much of our career.

It's really fabulous.

But I have no idea what are in those archives.

I hate those things.

You're in this song?

You don't like these things?

I think there's some things that should just fade off

into oblivion and not be documented.

It does fade off into oblivion. It stays…

Is that one of those tapes that self-destruct?

Well, it stays in my apartment, that's about the same thing.

You're gonna be sorry that you asked for this,

'cause it's a lot of shit.

What do you think this film is about?

Um… I don't know what the film is about.

It's kind of like, "I can't wait to see it,"

but I have no idea what it's going to be like.

What we understood was that you were gonna

figure out what the story was

and we didn't have to worry about it.

- -I had to do that once!

So I don't know what it's about.

I mean, our hope was that it could be

about something besides just us.

This one is a song about liberation.

Whoo!

There's so much more to us that happens off the stage

that tells our story.

Are we supposed to be somewhere where we're not?

Yeah.

The important part of what we have experienced

is more about activism and actions

and just how you affect the people around you.

So that's why context is important.

From the context of the music business,

and what's going on in the world.

An estimated million people…

And the experience within the context of the community.

That was funky.

This is like one of the only times

we were ever in Rolling Stone.

I used to collect Rolling Stone magazines too,

when I was a kid, so it's fun to be in it.

Except that it's, um… kind of a boys', misogynist,

sometimes, magazine, but…

Oh, here we are. Look, even then.

They asked us to pose like that.

Baptism.

I mean, we didn't suggest it, I'll just say that.

But, like, people thought it was just kind of um…

I don't know, is there a category that's lesbian Christian folk?

The fact that you're both lesbians,

but not together, so to speak, in a romantic way,

do people care about that?

Do they know about it? Is it part of the appeal?

Does it have any impact at all on your life and your music?

Yeah, it does.

I mean, it's the impact has changed through time,

how it impacts us, but we get a lot of support

from the queer community, and we appreciate that. Um…

It has held us back in many, many ways, you know,

but I think it's held us back just on radio, you know,

and in the media, but I think sexism is--