- published: 23 Aug 2014
- views: 30878
Patty Griffin, born Patricia Jean Griffin, March 16, 1964, is an American Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter and musician. She is especially known for her down-home crafting of songs and her connection to musicians including Emmylou Harris, Ellis Paul, Rory Block and the Dixie Chicks, who have played with her onstage as well as performing cover songs of Griffin's work, exposing many of her compositions to mainstream pop and country music audiences outside Griffin's folk music circle of fans. She was also recipient of the Americana Music Association's highest honor as "Artist of the Year" in 2007, as well as taking home the award for best album for Children Running Through. In 2011, Griffin won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Gospel Album for Downtown Church.
Patty Griffin is from Old Town, Maine, United States, next to the Penobscot Native American reservation. She is primarily a guitarist, pianist, and vocalist, with a distinctive voice. The youngest child in her family with six older siblings, she bought a guitar for $50 at age 16, and sang and played, but had no inclination at the time to become a professional musician. After a short marriage which ended in 1992, Griffin began playing in Boston coffee houses, and was scouted by A&M Records, who signed Griffin on the strength of her demo tape; however A&M thought it to be overproduced, so Nile Rodgers and A&M instead released a stripped-down reworking of her demo tape, as an album called Living with Ghosts.
All you kids get out the back door
I've never seen her this bad before
She took all her favorite things down from the window
And broke 'em all over her clean floor
It's Saturday at the mansion
The oldest boy walks with a slouch
The young ones are wild in back of the house
And she gave up and went back to sleep on the couch
Something as simple as boys and girls
Gets tossed all around and then lost in the world
Something as hard as a prayer on your back
Can wait a long time for an answer
When I was little I'd stare at her picture
And talk to the mother of God
I swear sometimes I'd see her lips move
Like she was trying to say something to me
When I was eighteen I moved to Florida,
Like everyone sick of the cold does,
And I waited on old people waiting to die
I waited on them until I was
Something as simple as boys and girls
Gets tossed all around and then lost in the world
Something as hard as a prayer on your back
Can wait a long time for an answer
So I'm wearing my footsteps into this floor
One day I won't live here anymore
Someone will wonder who lived here before
And went on their way
I live too many miles from the ocean
And I'm getting older and odd
I get up every morning with a black cup of coffee
And I talk to the mother of God
Something as simple as boys and girls
Gets tossed all around and then lost in the world
Something as hard as a prayer on your back
Can wait a long time for an answer...
Can wait a long time for an answer
Maybe ... it's alright.
Maybe we won't fight anymore.
Maybe love is waiting at the end of every room.
I don't know.
I don't know.
But maybe ... maybe it's al..........right.