The Indigo Girls - Lifeblood - Non-Album Tracks (1982-1987)

Once upon a time, the Indigo Girls were a very popular and critically acclaimed musical duo. Their mainstream debut album "Indigo Girls" sold a couple million copies, for instance. Their musical journey as a duo continues, but since the end of the 1990s, their popularity has gone down a lot. Unfortunately, I think that's because their first few albums were solid all the way through, with some really classic songs, whereas their more recent albums have been more hit and miss affairs.

That said, I'm still very fond of their music, and I'm going to use this blog especially to highlight their peak time in the 1980s and 1990s.

The music on this album goes back to their earliest years. When their mainstream album debut "Indigo Girls" album came out in 1989, it seemed to most people that that was the beginning of their career, but they actually had been playing and singing together since 1981, when they were still in high school. They put out an EP and a single in 1985, and an album, "Strange Fire," in 1987. But these all came out on minor labels, in limited numbers.

The "Strange Fire" album was re-released after their 1989 album hit it big, but their EP and other assorted early releases have remained obscure. Furthermore, it turns out they had a number of good, original songs that never have been officially released in any form. This album gathers up all their quality original songs from the start of their career up to, but not including, the 1987 "Strange Fire" album.

It seems the Indigo Girls have pretty much forgotten about or moved beyond this early part of their career. Only one song here, "Back Together Again," is widely available today, because that was included on the live album "1200 Curfews" (even though it's not a live recording). They put out an archival album called "Rarities" in 2005, and didn't include any of their early originals, so chances are these songs will never been officially released. That's a shame, because I think this album, and the 1987 "Strange Fire" album, are quite solid. Frankly, I'd rather listen to this early stuff than most of what they've put out in the last 20 or so years.

I was careful not to include any cover versions in this album, because they did many covers in the early part of their career, and I've made another album just of covers that covers the same time period. That'll be posted here soon.

By the way, these songs represent the best of their early original songs. There are even more songs I didn't include. For instance, Indigo Girl Amy Ray made an entire album's worth of original songs in 1982, but I didn't find any of them worthy of inclusion here. It took a few years before they mastered the art of songwriting, which is not surprising for anyone.

Some songs also weren't included due to sound quality issues. Generally speaking, I think these all have good to excellent audio quality, even though more than half of them are unreleased and sourced from concert bootlegs.

Also, by the way, as I mentioned above, I've avoided including any songs from the 1987 "Strange Fire" album, since you should own that album if you're an Indigo Girls fan. However, there's one song, "High Hopes," that only appeared on an early version of that album (before they hit it big and the album got rereleased). So I've included that here as a bonus track.

01 Back Together Again (Indigo Girls)
02 Everybody's Waiting [For Someone to Come Home] (Indigo Girls)
03 Lifeblood (Indigo Girls)
04 Never Stop (Indigo Girls)
05 If You Live like That (Indigo Girls)
06 Holy City (Indigo Girls)
07 Peace Song (Indigo Girls)
08 The Untitled Song (Indigo Girls)
09 Running from the Cold (Indigo Girls)
10 I Don't Know Your Name (Indigo Girls)
11 Emily's Song [Instrumental] (Indigo Girls)
12 Don't Give Up on Me, Baby (Indigo Girls)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15130024/TIngidoGs_1982-1987_LifebloodVariousSongs_atse.zip.html

I had a very hard time finding early photos of the Indigo Girls to use for an album cover. This cover is based on the 1985 "Crazy Game" single, so at least I know it's from the right time period. I added the blue blob and text at the bottom.