When the Indigo Girls covered Neil Young's "Down by the River" on their live 1200 Curfews, they rendered his tale of misogyny and murder impotent merely by making it their own. For Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, the focal point of a career spanning nearly two decades is to give clear voice to the marginalized by marrying simple music with powerful messages in a way that shrugs off mainstream sensibilities. It's difficult for many to remove the politics from the prose, but the Indigo Girls still paint with the same palette of emotions used by the generations of folkies who preceded them. In the end, a love song is still a love song.
