This is an excerpt from the print edition of Dirty Linen #139 (December 2008/January/February 2009).
The full article is in the magazine, available on newsstands, by subscription, and at the Dirty Linen webstore.

Eliza Gilkyson

Ready for a Fight

by Deborah Wilbrink

It would be easy to make Eliza Gilkyson into an action-adventure figure, the frail pop-teen-in-Hollywood angst venturing through the wilds of the music industry and maturing into a folk singer. Instead, Gilkyson is a real visionary, able to communicate foresight and clarity through her music. Everywoman-I/Eye-woman, a flawed heroine, Gilkyson is the incarnation of an archetype for our times.

Rasp or warble, soothe or shock? This subtle melody maker lures the listener into looking at the world from her far-seeing eyes. It could be the Dark Side of Town, or Wildewood Spring, written about Austin's famed Barton Springs. But in her latest release, Beautiful World, there's an expanded vision of beckoned apocalypse and merciful redemption:

They got their god they got their guns
got their armies and the chosen ones
but we'll all be burnin' in the same big sun
when the great correction comes.

This vision is inspired by changes in Gilkyson. "After 25 years of recordings, and after a lot of hard inner work, I've stopped obsessing about my own life and begun writing about other people's lives. We all reach a point where we realize we have to cross this river of grief where you go back in and really come to terms with ways you avoided feeling things and tracking things. To come out the other side of that river is painful and time-consuming, but then you're changed. You want to do something to help others; your sense of empathy is more highly developed at that point."

This is an excerpt from the print edition of Dirty Linen #139 (December 2008/January/February 2009).
The full article is in the magazine, available on newsstands, by subscription, and at the Dirty Linen webstore.

Copyright ©2008 Visionation, Ltd.