Meanwhile, their own career trials had only strengthened their bond. For decades, Ronstadt kept the yellow rose that Harris presented to her after an exceptionally nasty encounter with one of Neil Young’s bandmates in 1973; a few months later, she invited Harris out for an extended convalescence in California as she grieved the death of her former singing partner, Gram Parsons. Through difficult tours and indiscriminate egos, the friends extended comfort to one another. They, too, had butted up against powerful men in their industry who sought to fuck them one way or another.
“The Pain of Loving You” becomes a place where the women can relieve themselves of that burden, dissolving their individual identities along with their aches. “You just can’t stand to see me happy/Seems you hurt me all you can,” sings Harris, who’d spent much of Trio’s recording tangled in a private custody battle and found support with her singing partners. The pace of the song is gently upbeat, riding on a loose mandolin chop and a light rhythm section. In the chorus, the three come together, cresting a high that sounds almost flustered (“Never knowing what to do”) before slipping back down into a resigned sigh (“Oh, the pain of loving you”).
Trio radiates a sister-bestie energy, aided cosmically by three women who were born within 18 months of one another. Ronstadt once compared singing with Harris and Parton to trying on their voices, like “getting to wear the dress or the face or the figure of the prettiest girl on the block.” The three boasted serious vocal talent: Ronstadt landing blows with her bold and forthright soprano, Harris weaving with the strength and flexibility of willow branches, and Parton floating like a butterfly with her bright warble. Their braided voices had a special quality right away. “The sound that we made together surprised and astonished the three of us,” Harris recalled of their first time singing together, at her house in Los Angeles in 1975.
That sound shines brightest when the women maximize the spine-tingling charge of close bluegrass harmonies. George Lucas, who was dating Ronstadt at the time and directed the video for “To Know Him Is to Love Him,” offered a surprisingly astute assessment of his former beau and her friends: “It’s not just the voices. It’s the cultures behind the voices that blend, and their struggles.” Appalachian poverty, Arizona ranch life, rural restlessness, countercultural sea change, grown-woman heartbreak, and personal triumph all shade the emotional backdrops of Trio.
