In Our Cynical Era, We Need Cringe Music. Enter the Indigo Girls.
As one might expect, the soundtrack of the delightful new “Barbie” movie is dominated by the jaunty beats and dulcet tones of some of the reigning queens of female power pop: Dua Lipa, Lizzo and Billie Eilish.
Then comes (spoiler alert) the pivotal scene where Barbie is leaving Barbie Land to go to the real world for a crucial mission.
As she drives in her pink convertible on the road that leads out of her idealized candy-colored home and into the great unknown, she sings along at the top of her lungs to a song on the radio: “I went to the doctor.
I went to the mountains./I looked to the children. I drank from the fountains,” accompanied by a cascade of acoustic guitar strumming. “There’s more than one answer to these questions/Pointing me in a crooked line./And the less I seek my source for some definitive,/Closer I am to fine.” Yes, the leitmotif of the biggest movie of the year is a 34-year-old staple of my adolescence: the Indigo Girls’ “Closer to Fine.” On one level, it should have startled me to discover this.
