The Changer and the Changed
In 1975, Olivia Records arrived in North Texas via a Meg Christian concert in Dallas. I was living in Denton at the time, and my community included as many straight feminists as lesbians. Two amazing straight friends, Elaine Carpenter and Bonnie Bonnell, persuaded me and my lover to attend the concert, though I was fearful of doing so because I thought it might out me further.
We got there late, and the place was so crammed that wimmin were being shunted forward to sit on the edge of the stage, literally at Meg Christian's feet. Elaine grabbed my hand and dragged me to that spot, and that's how I watched the concert.
Nothing was ever the same afterward. Wimmin's music was different than anything I'd ever heard. Fundamentally different.
I bought the Meg Christian album, but Elaine went one better and bought the other album they were offering, by someone called Cris Williamson, showing a woman wearing only denim overalls standing in the desert. The next time I visited Elaine, she exclaimed she had been playing it non-stop and started it up on her stereo. We listened to it front and back, and I bought my own copy as soon as I could. Every song on it became an anthem for my generation, and we'd sing them at gatherings. Get two or my dykes of my generation together, hum a bar of any selection, and you'll find we know every lyric. It's a secret cultural glue outsiders don't know about.
So when I think about choosing only one Cris song for my memorial service, I get flummoxed. (Only one because there are so many different songs from other sources I want to include, and Alix will definitely have to represent more than one.) Some days it's Song of the Soul ("Come to your life like a warrior / Nothing will bore yer / You can be happy"), other days it is of course Waterfall ("Filling up and spilling over, it's an endless waterfall.") Maybe I should pick Shooting Star, which was a nickname given me by one sweet lover ("Out of the corner of my eye / I saw you blazing brightly by / You're such a shooting star / That's what you are").
But then I realize it has to be Sister. Sister is the song where we came to our feet, pulsing with emotion, and linked our arms around each other, swaying together in shared definition:
And you can count on me to share the load
And I will always held you hold your burden
And I will be the one to help you ease your pain
Lean on me
I am your sister
Believe on me
I am your friend
Any survivor of girlhood, any woman who shared that tricky path her own way: You were and are my sister. We know what this sisterhood means. It is for us, by us.
Happy birthday, Cris, our Changer. You gave us all bedrock and vision. We, the Changed, forever hank you.
Sunday, February 15, 2015
CRIS AND SISTERHOOD
Thursday, August 6, 2009
HUBBLE THURSDAY
(A string of cosmic pearls surround an exploding star; click on image to enlarge.)
Every Thursday, I post a very large photograph of some corner of space captured by the Hubble Space Telescope and available online from the picture album at HubbleSite.
Thunder is shaking the roof of my car
I will go through a desert for you
My thoughts are flying to where you are
I will go through a desert for you
Right on the edge of the storm
Tonight I'll be with you and warm
Oh, to lie in the circle of your arms
I will go through a desert for you
And for me
I will go through a desert for you
Oh, the sky had been falling
When I heard your voice calling me by name
Calling me by my name
Out of the corner of my eye
I saw you blazin' brightly by
You're such a shooting star
That's what you are
You're just a shooting star
Mountains are moving in the desert sun
I am crossing this desert for you
It is a lesson and it must be done
I am crossing this desert for you
Oh, the sky had been falling
When I heard your voice calling me by name
Calling me by my name
Out of the corner of my eye
I saw you blazin' brightly by
You're such a shooting star
That's what you are
You're just a shooting star
~~"Shooting Star", from The Changer And The Changed by Cris Williamson
(Eternal love to Annie Bell, who was the first to sing me this song and call me her shooting star.)
Thursday, June 25, 2009
HUBBLE THURSDAY
(Interacting Galaxies in Group Arp 194. Click on image to enlarge.)
Every Thursday, I post a very large photograph of some corner of space captured by the Hubble Space Telescope and available online from the picture album at HubbleSite.
Like a ship in the harbor
Like a mother and child
Like a light in the darkness
I'll hold you a while
We'll rock on the water
I'll cradle you deep
And hold you while angels
Sing you to sleep
~~"Lullabye" by Cris Williamson
Thursday, September 4, 2008
MYRA'S FAVORITE SONGS
(Women's Music pioneers: Alix Dobkin's Living with Lesbians, cover photo by Ginger Legato; Meg Christian and Cris Williamson, photo by JEB (Joan E. Biren); and Holly Near's Simply Love, cover photo by Mike Rogers)
Myra plays music often in her study. I've taken the liberty of raiding the songs she plays more frequently and copying them into a Box.net file so you, too, can listen to what Ginny hears from around the wall. Click on this Myra's Faves link and choose your song to play.
The selections include (click on images to enlarge, though not all will enlarge much):
"Sweet Lullaby" by Deep Forest -- sung by an old Solomon Islands woman, the lyrics are part of an essential myth from their culture about the nature of death, sung by an older sister to her younger brother
"Family of Woman" by Linda Shear, originally on her Lesbian Portrait album, but this version from High Risk, a benefit album of performance by Chicago women for the Lesbian Resource Cancer Center
"The Old Woman Song" written and performed by Michal Brody (this was released in the 1970's by Linda Shear on her Lesbian Portrait album, but this version was sung by Michal for High Risk, a benefit album of performance by Chicago women for the Lesbian Resource Cancer Center)
"Summertime" by Janis Joplin (written by George Gershwin)
"Hay Una Mujer Desaparecida" by Holly Near, with Adrienne Torf on piano and Enrique Cruz on zambona
"This Is To Mother You" by Emmy Lou Harris and Linda Ronstadt from the Western Wall/Tucson Sessions album (written by Sinead Oconnor)
"Western Wall" by Emmy Lou Harris and Linda Ronstadt from the Western Wall/Tucson Sessions album
"Having Been Touched/Emma" performed by Holly Near; "Having Been Touched" was originally written and performed by Margie Adam, a women's music pioneer, and "Emma" was made famous by Therese Edell and Betsy Lippitt, but I don't have those versions available and this cover is excellent, with Adrienne Torf on piano and Nina Gerber on guitar
"Here Comes The Sun" by Nina Simone
"Get Right With God" by Lucinda Williams
"Show Some Emotion" by Joan Armatrading
"I'm Lucky" by Joan Armatrading
"The Woman In Your Life is You" -- this was written by Alix Dobkin and used by Liza Cowan as a theme song on her WBAI radio show, but I don't have that version in MP3 format, so I'm using the Holly Near cover of it, with Nina Gerber on guitar
"Testimony" sung by Holly Near, although it was Ferron who made it famous, a women's music classic
"Down to the River" by Allison Krauss (this brings up Myra's childhood religious memories in a good way; Ginny just rolls her eyes when this comes on)
"Waterfall" written and originally performed by Cris Williamson on the biggest-selling women's music album of all time, The Changer and the Changed -- I don't have an MP3 of that, so I'm using the cover performed by Holly Near live at the 1985 Michigan Women's music Festival, with Rhiannon adding her vocals, Adrienne Torf on piano and Carrie Barton on bass
"Russian Song/Ode to Joy" by Pete Seeger (Myra is attached to the "Ode to Joy" version done by Pete)
"How Can I Keep From Singing" by Pete Seeger (this is often sung at Quaker Meeting)
"Mountain Song/Kentucky Woman" by Holly Near -- the "mountain song" lyrics were a staple not just in women's music but as rhetoric in the movement itself; Meg Christian on guitars, Barbara Cobb on bass
"Old Blue" performed here by Cisco Johnson, but Myra prefers to sing this very slowly and mournfully as that's how she heard it growing up
"On Children" by Sweet Honey in the Rock
"Little Potato" performed by Metamora, written by Malcolm Dalglish (Myra sung this to both her children when they were babies)
"A Woman's Love" by Alix Dobkin (originally on Lavender Jane Loves Women -- written about and for our own Liza Cowan)
"Gulf Coast Highway" written by Nanci Griffith, performed by her and Willie Nelson (this song reminds Myra so much of her parents' marriage, it always makes her cry)
"Oregon Mountains" by Woody Simmons (huge women's music hit in the 1970s when dykes were forming land collectives all over Oregon)
"Love Is All Around" by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts (otherwise known as the Mary Tyler Moore Show theme song)
"The Road I Took To You" written and sung by Barbara Keith, but it was the Meg Christian version on one of the first women's music albums ever which Myra and Ginny sang to one another in the Arboretum which helped launch and define their relationship
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