JDub Records

[Editor's note: a while back I asked Alicia of Girls in Trouble a series of odd questions about the new record, and the GIT vision at large, and the next few entries from Alicia are her responses to my queries.  Enjoy!]

Who got cut?  Which biblical ladies didn’t make onto the record?  Why?  What do you have to say about them?

I see this project as a trilogy; this is the just first part.  So these first ten songs are just the beginning - hopefully there will be twenty more, in the end.   Some are instrumentals so that means around seventeen or so more songs to write.  I’m actually already working on the second album, which so far includes a violin looping song about Lilith - someone I’ve been wanting to spend time with for a while - and an Appalachian-inspired ballad about Eyshes Chayil, the woman of valor.

I haven’t excluded any characters, but I have avoided writing about certain famous moments that are often discussed, like Miriam leading the song at the sea.  I try to bring darker parts of their lives into the light instead;  that’s why in Miriam’s song (”Snow”) she talks about getting struck with leprosy and exiled at the end of her life, instead of this triumphant moment people usually celebrate.   This is why I call the project “Girls in Trouble.”  I feel like it’s the trouble–the messiness and imperfection in these characters’ lives–that make them interesting and instructive and worth reading over and over.   When you’re happy, you don’t necessarily need to go digging for wisdom and reassurance - that impulse usually comes when things “fall apart,” as Pema Chodron (and Yeats) call it.

The trouble in these stories feels very familiar to me - on every level, from the political to the personal - even though the stories are so old. I think it’s a basic part of being human and if the Torah were full of sweet stories about perfect people, who would want to read that? How would it be helpful?

Snow / Scorpions and Spiders comes from Exodus, and tells the story of Miriam, the sister of Moses, and her struggles with being stricken by leprosy and her subsequent 7-day banishment to the desert. Why such a harsh punishment for Miriam for asking a question, after she’s given her life to helping G-d?

Read the lyrics after the jump!
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