Senior Jennifer Lindsay gave an enthusiastic solo performance at the Stanford Coffee House on Oct.13. Steeped in folk tradition, Lindsay offered the audience a thorough sampling of her abilities as both guitarist and songwriter, with themes ranging from sweet to savage to celebratory. The set primarily featured her own music, along with several cover breaks from Ani DiFranco, Simon and Garfunkel, and Joni Mitchell. She laughingly describes her material as "songs about springtime and lost love," but her music forays also include feminist commentary, frustrations with life at Stanford, body image issues and sexual assault.
…a casual conversational style showed Lindsay very much in her element…an overall energized atmosphere and intelligent, incisive lyrics pervaded the performance. For example, her comments on a sexual assault: "Wounds hit air and harden over a base of rage/scared the wound will wedge and friends will disengage/scared that people understand first by taking aim/at the ways I could have stopped the folding of control/don't pretend it doesn't happen to a girl that you could know/the bereaved can not be grieved if the tales are never told."
Lindsay said, "I think that any pursuit becomes more meaningful when it's clearly on a level outside yourself-when you can look at your life and say, 'hey, this isn't about me anymore.' If my music can be a call to action instead of just a melodic reading of my diary, then it's inclusive-and that much more joy is injected into the process. It's cathartic on many levels."
Lindsay takes center stage again at the Coffee House on Nov. 2, Nov. 22 and Dec. 15.

--Stanford Daily