The first band I ever loved was the Indigo Girls. Amy’s brother, Jason, had gotten their first album for (from?) his Evil Girlfriend, Jessica, and Amy stole it and brought it on a band trip, I think it was. I can’t remember if it was CD or cassette, but I remember learning the words to Closer to Fine right away. I think that was the year I got my first CD player, and I remember going to RecordTown to get my own version on CD.

Rites of Passage came out when I was in high school, and it was a frequent source of mix-tape songs. Romeo and Juliet was the first song I could sing out loud, and I did, driving my mother’s green minivan on the back roads of my adolescent stomping grounds. Amy taught me how to sing using Galileo.

When we were in high school, we heard about the Indigo Girls coming to do a show at a college four hours from where we lived. Andy and his Bangor friends were going, so we sent them cash in an envelope for them to get tickets. (Oh, early nineties and your pre-internet quirks!) Of course, the envelope “got lost” on its way to Brooke, and we never got tickets. It was probably for the best though, I remember that day being a slushy mess. The 400 mile round trip would have been a pain in the ass, and probably terrified our parents.

(Incidentally, Amy did get to see them perform, years later, with my sister. I was in Phoenix at the time, but they went. Amy was quite pregnant with #2, and I was insanely jealous that I was not on that little road trip.)

When JT died, it was Dead Man’s Hill from Swamp Ophelia that made me cry for weeks afterward. The words and their meaning captured that event, so well. When I heard, I went to Dysart’s with Amy, and their cover of Tangled Up in Blue was playing when it really HIT ME. Any version now reminds me of the moment on that cold February night when I really realized what had happened, my headlights reflecting off the snowbanks of my driveway, the quiet of past-midnight Bangor and that song, playing on my tape deck.

Nomads, Indians and Saints was my cleaning song at Court Street. It always kept my dishwashing and floor mopping at a good clip, and the whole album was good to sing along to.

Mystery was the song Amy wanted to sing at my wedding. That idea came when she lived in Canada and had the 1200 Curfews album. She taped it for me, and played it. “Here, this part: you like to stand in the line of fire just to show you can shoot straight from your hip that’s so you, Gretch.”

At Court Street, Amy would pop in the discs, and the acoustic Back Together Again was one we both liked to sing to. “This is like us, only we’ve always been friends” is what we said. Back Together Again was a misnomer, because what would cause us to not be friends? “Heh, nothing, of course. That’s just stupid.”

I had the 1200 Curfew tapes, dubbed from Amy’s discs, and they were stashed in the bucket of tapes that sat on the floor of my car as I criss-crossed the country, driving alone, with the window down and shades on, and a cigarette in my hand. I never had the CDs, the tapes always sufficed, and then they got lost or damaged or too ashy to play right anymore.

And then we weren’t friends anymore. And I didn’t listen to music much, we had free cable and I was working and going to school and listening to books on tape, instead. I didn’t work in a music store, either, so free music wasn’t happening on a monthly basis. I moved my big black binder of CDs from place to place, never really opening it.

And last year, when she heard I was getting married, she found me. She contacted me, and it was hesitant and guarded and hard at first. But she was there, at my wedding. And has been there ever since.

So, today, I found myself drawn to clean to Nomads, Indians and Saints again, the first time in a long time. And after I talked to her, I thought of that song, the one on 1200 Curfews, Back Together Again. I couldn’t find it on iTunes, so I went to Bull Moose Music, and for the first time in years, I bought music. When I got home, I put it on, cued up the track, and sent all the good energy I could muster in her general direction, because after talking to her, it sounded like she could use it.

The Indigo Girls were the first band I ever loved, and they have been the soundtrack to my friendship with Amy for more than a dozen years, even when we didn’t realize it was a soundtrack. So, Agnes, I guess learning the words to the song were more prophetic than we thought, huh?

Leaving ain’t fair you know
Parting ain’t just
People got to move on
People got to do what they must
And we’re back together again
And I’m never gonna lose you as a friend

Growing up free
Growing up wild
If you want to know the secret behind the smile
You got to ask a tuesday’s child
And we’re back together again
And I’m never gonna lose you as a friend

Well I guess that highway got a hold of me
Thinking crazy thoughts like it was going to set me free

This ain’t my place you know
This ain’t my home
And I’m not going to feel right
Til you get us back behind the microphones
And we’re back together again
And I’m never gonna lose you as a friend
No I’m never gonna lose you as a friend
No I’m never gonna lose you as a friend