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Songs I Wish I Could Be / Songs I Am: Sunday Morning – Ani DiFranco

23 Sep 2010 Comments Off

by jianda monique in Articles by Ji, Beautiful & Yummy, Connection, General Ji, Inspiration, LGBTQ, Prose by Ji Tags: ani difranco, jianda monique, songs, songs i am, songs i wish i could be

Songs I Wish I Could Be / Songs I Am: Sunday Morning – Ani DiFranco

Preparing to write this, and I’ve wanted to write this (and “right this”) for so, so long. I asked myself, ‘How to phrase this, Love?  What’s not to love about Ani?’

‘Share Your Heart’ was the answer. Much like Ani would herself.

I came to love Ani (“that’s Mr. DiFranco to you”) through an Alice in Wonderland-esque trap door. In my coming out (of my pod) years, all queer women were supposed to like–and love, memorize, and evangelize–Ani. Okay…unofficially, perhaps.

I just couldn’t find a way to get into it. I was working on healing myself from panic attacks, and childhood stuff, and so forth beginning a meditation practice, way into uber mellow music, and the tracks of hers that I’d heard on college radio sounded like Grand Central Station to me: too much, too fast, too soon, overwhelming. I know that a song or two stood out before, some I’d I heard on college radio grabbed my attention, but not so much that I remembered too much about them–automatically I respected her fire, her musicianship. Anything else just wasn’t on the plane yet, I guess, wasn’t yet ready for an audience with the queen. ;)

Enter a previous lover of mine who was enchanted with Ani’s dear heart, dear lyrics, heart-on-sleeve politics and amazing musicianship, much like the many other dear queer and queer friendly recruits to her “one woman army.” represented everything I could not be–or so I told myself. Everything I was afraid to be. Or just wasn’t yet ready. My lover’s acquaintances here and there, also Ani-devotees, seemed too, to be in this unreachable uber-sainted authentic/cool space that I was just so reticent about in my own shapes and spaces. Everything I saw in my lover’s eyes, in  that…well, if wishing made it so…could I be just a little bit more like…?

Aw, bless my ex’s heart, taking me through song by song, songs known by heart in my ex’s world, spoonfeeding me Ani’s gorgeous love songs like “Sunday Morning…” All the while, other songs about tangled threesomes, cheatin’ hearts, chaotic relationships that were so long in the tooth, needing emergency surgery, or blame-gaming tomes, I’d ask if my ex could skip to the next song, please? Being a dear, the ex obliged….

Then comes “Sunday Morning,” again and again and again. I’m happy to say that my ex and I shared the select dreamy days like this song, we had our little pockets of each of us in our own spaces, and “looking up…occasionally.”

I have since, of course, fallen through the trap door through to the other side, and am standing up in a flower-field, poppies and all, of loving Ani, head to toe. It took me a very slow, ever-winding up, up, up getting to know. Still I acquaint myself with her. Still she teaches me.  Thank you Universe for patient ex’s, Ani’s pixie lioness heart, for progress, passion, and potential, and for absolutely Divine music. And how apropos that I’d choose this song to muse aloud about: so much of it is about the residue of someone who obviously affected her, or the “narratrix” in this song, at the very least. Nostalgia, and memories of that yumminess, while knowing life walks on–all one long meditation, one long journey.

As for “Sunday Morning” itself, I’ve been there. Hasn’t everybody somewhere, some time? All of her passion coiled up, snake-like, ready to strike, finds cool breezes, solace, and mellowed out yet still funky acoustic guitar riffs, each nuance, note, chord, and sentiment enveloped in her lioness heart…complemented majestically, magically with such poetry in lyrics. That feeling of relief, release, in the interdependence of a lazy day when the world sighs, and your lover and you cuddle under sheets, “Sheets still warmin’, kitties swarmin’ round our feet….” Such a meditative groove, and I have rocked this many a time for meditation’s sake. Droppin’ that baby into the player on repeat, soaking up all the love in this lyrical masterpiece, and giving it right back.

While the tune dances somewhere in the netherworld of snow angels, and cherries, and puppies, and hearts, Ani never ventures too far from reminding you of her fierce independence…her practicality. “Both of us reading…” And yet still, her heart is big enough to share with the whole wide world–she sees and treasures the oneness in the individuality: “Speaking words more of formality…cause we can feel we are of one mind.”

The love in this track lingers. Comfort. Peace. Ease and Calm. Yes. You just feel like Ani must have crafted this delectable track with a bricklayer’s attention. With a honed skill, patience, and inherent adoration it. For the poetry of the moment’s she sharing–no matter how long it took her to create this baby.

Run, don’t walk, to the record shop, click to Amazon, find Righteous Babe, do what ya gotta do to enter into a relationship with this melody, and with Ani’s heart-building, love-soaring, honest and dear artistry.

Download Sunday Morning @ Amazon.com

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Surf Ani’s Oceans and Waves of LoveSound and HeartVision:

Ani DiFranco Official Homepage

Shop Ani @ Amazon

Righteous Babe Records, HoneyBabies. Mmm!

Sunday Morning: Lyrics

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Avec Mon Coeur,

Jianda

Artist: www.Jianda.net
Columnist: Holistic Health & Lesbian Relationships
Light Worker: SunMoonHealingHeart.com

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“Stay In Love” is a Featured Track in Faith Trimel’s LGBT Film, Family.

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Ani DiFranco Photo: Julio Enriquez

(originally published in July at LesbianFolk)