It wasn't that I didn't want to be tall enough to reach the top shelf, drive a car, stay up late on school nights or get into R-rated movies without the hassle of crawling under the velvet ropes of MPAA-regulations while the previews were finishing up. I wanted all those trappings of near-adulthood-badly. As I started to get older, as I started to get taller, as I took down my pigtails, as I stopped smiling so freely, as I stopped exploring smoky forests in favor of exploring my feelings (whatever that's supposed to mean), I became rather frightened that I was going to lose my innocence along with my green corduroy jumpers and the scars on my knees.
You know what, though? Change happens. Growth happens. There's nothing that I, try as I might, could do to stop it-so I kept going forward, a continual coward in my own development. As I've been listening to "Reckoning / Revelling," the oddly packaged, ambitious two-disc set by none other than indie-folk wild child, Ani DiFranco, I've come to find that I'm not so scared anymore.
As anyone who has attended any of her recent concerts can tell you, DiFranco has been gearing up for something different. Favoring more ornate instrumentation (most notably the addition of horns and Maceo Parker, of James Brown/George Clinton fame) and an undeniably catchy blues-influenced sound, DiFranco's musical metamorphosis has beautifully come into form on this latest effort. The "Reckoning" and "Revelling" discs are undeniably separate in their sound-"Reckoning" is more upbeat, generally funkier and pays homage to an eclectic list of influences, including Prince and P-funk, whereas "Revelling" is a softer, more introspective venture. Both discs are also full of cute (albeit curt) musical interludes.
It took me a while to make the transition, to cut loose my proverbial ties of loyalty to DiFranco's earlier work. What I discovered as I continued to listen, as I continued to traverse those boundaries which she so fearlessly continues to break with every strum of her guitar, every emotion-riddled lyric, every deeply personal sentiment, was nothing short of phenomenal.
In every moment of "Reckoning / Revelling," there is a gorgeously crafted sense of maturation, of welcome change, of growth. By paying attention to the lyrics, the listener can almost trace DiFranco's personal development, just as well as they can trace the development of her musical style.
DiFranco makes no mistake of letting us think that just because she's grown older (and married, no less, to Andy Stochansky, her drummer and the subject of 1996's blistering "Dilate") that she's stopped being the understated innovator we've become so familiar with over the past decade.
It is important to mention that not everything has changed. The albums do have well-placed moments of nostalgia in them. Noteworthy among these are "Garden of Simple" and "Marrow" on the "Reckoning" disc, alongside "Your Next Bold Move," "Grey," and "School Night" on the "Revelling" disc. All of these songs harken back to DiFranco's much-perfected formula of politics, personality and love, while showcasing her deceptively simple acoustic presence (as anyone who plays guitar can tell you, it's not simple at all) in the fashion to which myself and other fans have grown accustomed. "What I mean to say / is xxoo / which means I'm thinking of you / Which means I've been thinking of you / all along," she sings on "Garden of Simple," softly pushing open the door of her "little pink heart" (as she sings on "Grey") for all the world to see. I'm so glad she does.
DiFranco also explores something we haven't heard her talk too much about-she's gone from 1996's "jerk with the heartache" ("Dilate") to the cause of pain and complication (although a necessary position in this process of growth). She's no longer occupying the permanent position of the jilted lover and instead has begun to experience (and admit to) life on the other end of the line. On "School Night," she drowns herself in metaphors for difficult choices between lovers, and on "Sick of Me," she owns up to the change in her personal power dynamic: "I took to the stage / With my outrage / In the bad old days / When you were the make-me-mad guy / But the songs / They come out more slowly / now that I am the bad guy."
As inhuman as she may seem-we know now that she isn't. She's growing up, just like we are, amidst these moments in life that seem to only be accurately captured by sidelong glances, polaroids with the corners worn down, rumpled sheets at dawn, ink-heavy pages of journals, and within the words and wisdom of articulate, practiced observers. And Ani DiFranco is here to teach us about these moments, to teach us that sometimes these complications are just as simple as a song.