Welch and Rawlings have collaborated on seven critically acclaimed albums, five released under her name, and two released under the name Dave Rawlings Machine. Her 1996 debut, Revival, and the 2001 release Time (The Revelator), received nominations for the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Her 2003 album, Soul Journey, introduced electric guitar, drums, and a more upbeat sound to their body of work. After a gap of eight years, she released a fifth studio album, The Harrow & The Harvest, in 2011, which was also nominated for a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album.
Welch was an associate producer and performed on two songs of the soundtrack of the Coen brothers 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a platinum album that won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2002. She also appeared in the film attempting to buy a Soggy Bottom Boys record. Welch, while not one of the principal actors, did sing and provide additional lyrics to the Sirens song "Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby." In 2018 she and Rawlings wrote the song "When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings" for the Coens' The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, for which they received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Welch has collaborated and recorded with Alison Krauss, Ryan Adams, Jay Farrar, Emmylou Harris, the Decemberists, Sam Phillips, Conor Oberst, Ani DiFranco, and Robyn Hitchcock.
Gillian Howard Welch was born on October 2, 1967 in New York City, and was adopted by Mitzie Welch (née Marilyn Cottle) and Ken Welch, comedy and music entertainers. Her biological mother was a freshman in college, and her father was a musician visiting New York City. Welch has speculated that her biological father could have been one of her favorite musicians, and she later discovered from her adoptive parents that he was a drummer. Alec Wilkinson of The New Yorker stated that "from an address they had been given, it appeared that her mother ... may have grown up in the mountains of North Carolina". When Welch was three, her adoptive parents moved to Los Angeles to write music for The Carol Burnett Show. They also appeared on The Tonight Show.
As a child, Welch was introduced to the music of American folk singers Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and the Carter Family. She performed folk songs with her peers at the Westland Elementary School in Los Angeles. Welch later attended Crossroads School, a high school in Santa Monica, California. While in high school, a local television program featured her as a student who "excelled at everything she did."
Welch and Rawlings incorporate elements of early twentieth century music such as old time, classic country, gospel and traditional bluegrass with modern elements of rhythm and blues, rock 'n' roll, jazz, and punk rock. The New Yorker's Alec Wilkinson maintained their musical style is "not easily classified—it is at once innovative and obliquely reminiscent of past rural forms".
The instrumentation on their songs is usually a simple arrangement, with Welch and Rawlings accompanying their own vocals with acoustic guitars, banjos, or a mandolin. Welch plays rhythm guitar with a 1956 Gibson J-50 (or banjo), while Rawlings plays lead on a 1935 Epiphone Olympic Guitar.The New Yorker's Wilkinson described Rawlings as a "strikingly inventive guitarist" who plays solos that are "daring melodic leaps". A review in No Depression by Andy Moore observed that Rawlings "squeezes, strokes, chokes and does just about everything but blow into" his guitar.
Many songs performed by Welch and Rawlings contain dark themes about social outcasts struggling against such elements as poverty, drug addiction, death, a disconnection from their family, and an unresponsive God. Despite Welch being the lead singer, several of these characters are male. Welch has commented, "To be commercial, everybody wants happy love songs. People would flat-out ask me, 'Don't you have any happy love songs?' Well, as a matter of fact, I don't. I've got songs about orphans and morphine addicts." To reflect these themes, Welch and Rawlings often employ a slow pace to their songs. Their tempo is compared to a "slow heartbeat", and Cowperthwait of Rolling Stone observed that their songs "can lull you into near-hypnosis and then make your jaw drop with one final revelation".
I'll Fly Away
Gillian Welch Lyrics
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I'll fly away
To that home on God's celestial shore
I'll fly away
I'll fly away, oh glory
I'll fly away, in the morning
When I die, Hallelujah by and by
When the shadows of this life have gone
I'll fly away
Like a bird from these prison walls I'll fly
I'll fly away
I'll fly away, fly away, oh glory
I'll fly away, in the morning
When I die, Hallelujah by and by
I'll fly away
Oh, how glad and happy when we meet
I'll fly away
No more cold iron shackles on my feet
I'll fly away
I'll fly away, oh glory
I'll fly away, in the morning
When I die, Hallelujah by and by
I'll fly away
I'll fly away, oh glory
I'll fly away, in the morning
When I die, Hallelujah by and by
I'll fly away
Just a few more weary days and then
I'll fly away
To a land where joys will never end
I'll fly away
I'll fly away, fly away, oh glory
I'll fly away, in the morning
When I die, Hallelujah by and by
I'll fly away
I'll fly away
The lyrics to Gillian Welch's "I'll Fly Away" speak to the desire for eternal salvation and the hope of escaping the pain and suffering of this life. The song takes on a spiritual tone, speaking to a belief in the afterlife and a longing to be freed from the shackles of the hardships of the world. The line "when this life is over, I'll fly away," for example, depicts the singer's desire to transcend the physical world and find peace in the spiritual realm.
Similarly, the line "no more cold iron shackles on my feet" can be viewed as a reference to the oppression and violence that many experienced in the American South during slavery and the Jim Crow era. The desire to fly away from this chain of oppression and find freedom in the afterlife is a common theme in spirituals and gospel music.
The song's refrain, "I'll fly away, oh glory," serves as an affirmation of faith and a declaration of hope. It speaks to the idea that the singer's journey to the afterlife will be a joyful one, free from the pain and difficulties of life.
Overall, "I'll Fly Away" is a song that speaks to the human desire for salvation and the hope for a better life after this one. It is a song about the strength of faith, and the belief that redemption is possible through a journey to the afterlife.
Line by Line Meaning
Some bright morning when this life is over
At some point in the future, when my time on earth has come to an end
I'll fly away
I will leave this world and soar to a better place
To that home on God's celestial shore
I will take flight to my eternal home in the peace and beauty of heaven
I'll fly away, oh glory
With a sense of triumph and rejoicing, I will soar from this world to the next
I'll fly away, in the morning
My departure will be heralded by the dawn of a new day
When I die, Hallelujah by and by
As I breath my last breath, I will praise God and be welcomed into heaven
When the shadows of this life have gone
The dark and difficult times of my earthly existence will no longer trouble me
Like a bird from these prison walls I'll fly
Just as a bird escapes a confined space, I will leave behind the limitations and challenges of life on earth
Oh, how glad and happy when we meet
I will be overjoyed to be reunited with loved ones who have passed away before me
No more cold iron shackles on my feet
I will be forever free from the burdens and limitations of this mortal life
Just a few more weary days and then
Though my journey seems long and difficult now, it will soon come to an end
To a land where joys will never end
I will be transported to a place of pure, unending happiness and bliss
Lyrics © Songtrust Ave
Written by: Albert E. Brumley
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind