Country Pocket

With You is not the first album I’ve ever listened to gushing about the magic of becoming a parent.“Tracing my finger on the soft of your ear/your breath relaxing into mine/you arrived, now I sing, a broken harmony/how slow, how fast do these days go by?” Courtney Hartman sings about her daughter Temple on “Honey, Honey.” The deep imprint such a simple action left on her is clear and well put.

I’m not trying to downplay the impact of such themes; just because many women (and some men) have expressed them to music before doesn’t make them any less heartwarming or worthy. But what makes With You so interesting and relatable is the quality and quantity of the questions Hartman has about the whole process, and the insecurities she’s unafraid to address. She is somehow able to acknowledge that there are things she knows, things she can’t know, and that sometimes they can be the same thing at the same time. “I’ll know you then like I know you now/it’s all a mystery still to me/we’re growing,” she sings on “Growing,” a song set when Temple was still in her womb. In harbouring and then nurturing a child, there’s an innate familiarity. Yet as time goes on, both mother and child change, child especially. She will grow, learn to walk, talk, make friends, start absorbing ideas from the outside world. The change and mystery will be constant, just as the knowing will.  

Hartman’s focus on the unknown proves compelling throughout. “To Carry You,” toward the end of the album, is a breathtaking expression of insecurity on the same subject. Hartman repeatedly asks if she’ll ever know what it truly means to be a mother.

“It’s not really a question you can ask, so you wonder. That song more than any other has made me cry while singing it, just because that question can sometimes feel challenging and th love feels really deep,” said Hartman. “More often than not, I don’t really feel adequate. That’s a thin place in me.”

It was a sentence that I simultaneously completely understood and yet made me want to jump in and defend Hartman, even though she’s the one who said it.

Hartman is an intelligent person with the strength and tenderness to put her heart on display for anyone who listens and the tenacity to tour multiple continents playing music. Of course she can raise a child. And yet, parenthood seems so daunting. A child is a piece of your heart that’s walking around outside you, my parents explained to me growing up, and that can be stressful. You can’t possibly be there to protect them from everything. It’s also a tremendous expenditure of energy both before and after pregnancy. First your body transforms, then your life.

“We’re often told we can take it all on, but the reality is that we’re humans which means that we’re limited,” said Hartman. “But what I’ve sensed is a clarity of what is important and what I can shed.” 

A career of touring is one of those things being shed, at least for the foreseeable future. Hartman, a guitar player regularly named as one of the most accomplished in bluegrass when she came on the scene, is now focused on local functions. She’s raising her daughter and has another child on the way. Still, she certainly has things she’d like to achieve.

“I feel really good when I’m doing things and checking lists off. So there are a lot of things about me personally that grates up against the presence and pace of a small child,” said Hartman. “Even now watching my daughter, who is almost three, try to put her shoes on, my instinct is to rush it along. But the practice of continuing to do that work of staying present and slow down, it’s a struggle for me. But it’s an important thing for me to struggle with, I think.”

Not being on the road is a challenge for a musician, but she’s still managing to write and create.

“I think the music industry wants us to think that the only way we can continue creating is if we’re on the road all the time. So I’ve had some reckoning to do with my own desires,” said Hartman. “It’s actually impossible with the way that social media works in our minds to not compare our lives to other people. Learning contentment is a superpower, not one I’ve fully tapped into.”

Hartman repeatedly put her insecurities and perceived weaknesses out there. When discussing performing on piano and fiddle in her community, she said she was nervous. 

“The tiniest new thing and all of a sudden I have my own little freak outs,” said Hartman. “But it’s good. Then you do it and you feel good and it’s important.”

Hartman noted and appreciated her growth throughout our discussion, so I asked if she had come any closer to knowing what it means to be a mother. 

“Slightly,” she said. “But the question grows. It balloons and changing. Because we’re always changing.”

Elsewhere on the album, Hartman notably takes the time to thank the women in her life who assisted her in the months described.

Didn’t you give the soothing of a mother?/How did you know just what to say?, Hartman sings of her midwife in “Companion.” “No one needs mothering/like a woman in the summer days of mothering,” she sings in “Like A Woman,” referencing her own mother as a special source of advice. It’s an aspect of new parenthood that’s rarely explored on these concept albums, let alone on multiple tracks.

“Motherhood is an experience of womanhood, but it’s only one facet of womanhood. I wanted this song to speak even more broadly to how we as a sisterhood support one another and show up for one another,” said Hartman. “I was almost startled for the desire that I had for mothering as I became a mother. That feeling is familiar. Maybe it happens to both parents, that sense of ‘golly I need guidance.’ But I think there is an innate need for that extra care.”

She expressed gratitude and awe at her own mother.

“My mom’s pretty amazing. I have nine siblings and so she’s experienced birth and all that comes with it ten times, which totally blows my mind,” said Hartman. “There’s a lot that I can talk to my own mom about, which is such a gift. I don’t take that lightly.”

Our discussion was interrupted, quite appropriately given the subject matter, by Temple walking in asking to watch Mr. Rogers. She’s an imaginative child who wanted to pretend to ski. And she’s certainly Hartman’s child, taking interest in the mandolin at a music event.

“Ultimately I want her to love what she is curious about and nurture her in that direction,” said Hartman, who is admittedly helping to foster Temple’s interest in music. “Mostly I’ll sing to her. Some of them are little songs I’ve written or songs my mom used to sing to us. Music is good. I want this to be part of her life.”

It was that desire that helped Hartman grow past an insecurity I never would’ve guessed the Grammy nominee felt. 

“My husband and I didn’t used to play music around each other. There was this little insecurity and ego thing,” said Hartman “I didn’t just sing around the house. When Temple was born, it hit me: Am I going to let my own pride and insecurities keep me from sharing music from her in just an every day way?”

Before our conversation ended, I could hear Temple playing some kind of small piano in the background. It would seem as though the strategy is working.

Above is the full episode as aired on WUSB’s Country Pocket, including both my interview with Courtney Hartman and the songs we discussed, starting with “Like A Woman,” which gives special thanks to the sisterhood supporting new mothers. The interview begins with the second video in the playlist. You can hear the show live alternate Wednesdays at 8am on WUSB 90.1 FM or check the blog to watch it as a YouTube playlist. Visit http://www.WUSB.fm and https://www.courtneyhartman.com for more.

“My attitude towards healing is that it’s never done. There’s no such thing as healed,” said Laura Burhenn, lead singer and songwriter for the Mynabirds in one of the most emotional Country Pocket interviews I’ve recorded over more than a decade on air.

There’s a very crucial distinction between Burhenn saying that healing can’t be finished and that healing isn’t possible. It’s Okay To Go Back If You Keep Moving Forward is a testament to her belief in the possibility of healing, even at the cost of wading back through the darkness and pain. It’s actually so important and so constantly ongoing that she has no choice but to. Given what Burhenn has to say on this masterpiece of grief and evolution, it seems insane to ever ‘go back’ to the sources of her pain. And yet, it’s in the exploration of those terrible feelings that she’s able to land somewhere much closer to happy by the end of this saga. 

Moving forward with deep trauma is like trying to move against a ferocious gravity pulling you back toward the worst moments of your life. In a move straight out of a NASA mission, Burhenn uses this gravity as a slingshot. It’s a high risk manoeuvre that only propels her to where she’s trying to go by circling the rim of a black hole. It’s bleak, but successful. This is not an album for the faint of heart, but it’s absolutely for anyone who’s been shattered. 

“I’m as fragile as fragile can be/I’ve been torn at the seams,” Burhenn sings on Velveteen. She describes her state well on the first two tracks, though the specificity of feeling doesn’t do much in the way of revealing what happened to her. “Ramona, Patron Saint of Silence,” will immediately answer that question for anyone who’s ever been a victim of a predator. “Did you worry about the worlds you’d incinerate with the things that you’d say?” Burhenn sings on that track. Now we’re getting somewhere.

“In survival mode, we have the four Fs: flight, fight, freeze, or fawn. Silence is a sort of freezing that we do and it keeps us safe,” said Burhenn. “In that space, I think I realised I stopped writing because I had encountered a big trauma in my life and I needed to stay frozen for a while to be able to survive. Ultimately, the song is a thank you letter to whatever force protects us while we heal. Also, it’s a letter of gratitude to the power of our voice and the worlds we could destroy when we are ready to speak out.”

Speak out Burhenn does. She doesn’t name the source of her pain, but she paints him as successful in the music industry with a perverse appetite. “Tell me how does she taste?/I know how you like your meat/Fresh as a daisy,” she sings on “Drinking Song,” one of the darkest, most stomach turning tracks I’ve ever empathised with. Burhenn was already taking risks describing assault in such raw terms. But the anger, jealousy, and initial lack of empathy she displays toward what is clearly a fellow victim pushes this track into heart-stopping territory. “Can you do her a solid?/One thing I wish you’d done for me/Please make it bleed,” Burhenn sings, letting all those emotions out at the same time as wishing her own scars would be more visible and easily understood. There’s a reason Burhenn sat on this song for as long as she did. These are hard words to think and impossible to unspeak.

“I wrote it during the Me Too era. I like many people became very aware of abuse and trauma that I had suffered and witnessed. There was a real reconning,” said Burhenn. “I wrote that song and I didn’t know what to do with it. I was so disgusted by that song, I was so disgusted by the feelings that were coming up inside of me. It was something I was witnessing across the music industry. A younger and younger person keeps getting ushered in and I know what that exchange looks like. I know personally that it wasn’t great. Often times, it wasn’t consensual. I sang that song out of so much anger that I didn’t know what to do with it.”

That’s the ‘going back’ part of the album title. Dancing on the edge of that black hole, teardrops being sucked in, barely believing there’s a way out. That’s the years of silence being broken with the most blood curdling scream. 

“There’s just this energy in this world of people taking and extracting whatever they want,” said Burhenn “I can’t abide this anymore.” 

It’s okay if you barely made it this far. Burhenn created powerful medicine with this release, but not all medicine cures all wounds. The good news is that the rest is moving forward. Crucially, “Drinking Song” puts that on display before it ends. The last refrain tries desperately to take those words back. 

“Maybe if this happens to someone else, I’ll feel less alone and we can commiserate over it,” Burhenn started, describing it as a horrible thought. 

“I don’t want anyone to experience this hell,” she finished.

“Allowing both that original thought and that more evolved, more healed thought to exist together in that song was important. It’s not neat, it’s not tidy what people experience when they’re dealing with abuse, when they’re healing,” said Burhenn. “I think part of the healing process is allowing the darkest thoughts to bubble up and get free. I think if I can say it out loud, hopefully anyone who hears it will feel less alone.” 

Once the darkest thoughts came free, lighter ones followed. Burhenn is a Buddhist and early on in our conversation mentioned the core belief of “be the change you want to see.”

“I think that we are all operating from some place of trauma, and the more we can look that in the eye and work to heal that within ourselves, I think we heal the whole world,” said Burhenn. She described wanting to write this album from a collective voice. She cited Maya Angelou, another victim of abuse who chose to remain silent for years before putting extraordinary words to the page.

“I think there’s this lineage of voice throughout human history and I feel like that’s part of what I’m singing about,” said Burhenn. “What does it sound like when people who have been oppressed and repressed finally recognise their own worth and speak up for themselves?” 

Two strains have emerged in Burhenn’s thinking. The first is best described in “Ramona, Patron Saint of Silence,” when she embodies a volcano: “there’s wisdom in the fire/and some things need to burn.”

“I struggle with what it means to be a force of peace and love in the world and the truth of the matter is that some things need to be destroyed,” said Burhenn. “Destroying the old world to make way for the new one is also an act of love.”

Burhenn sees this happening even today, in the partial release of the Epstein files and the slow movement toward justice for at least some of the abusers. She also sees a lot more systems that need to burn. Yet Burhenn doesn’t want to see people destroyed, even the bad ones. Being the change she wants to see means loving. Loving means showing kindness to people who may not deserve it at the time – or possibly ever. 

“I also wish for all the abusers to heal,” said Burhenn. “The best thing you can do when faced with an abuser is stop their abuse. Not only are they hurting other people, they’re hurting themselves too. If you come from a place from deep love and forgiveness, that’s what you want.” 

That extends to participants some systems creating a lot of trauma at the very moment. Burhenn describes her philosophy as being focused on comforting those who are hurting, as opposed to just finding a way to get through pain.

“When your outrage is rooted in love, you cannot fail,” said Burhenn. “Be they an ICE agent or a racist asshole, I fully believe that their position comes from fear and ignorance. When I come face to face with that energy, I have to be courageous and full of love.”

“We won’t surrender a thing/by disarming,” Burhenn sings on “Disarm,” a track toward the end of the album.

“It’s not that we don’t choose to fight, it’s that we choose to do it differently,” said Burhenn. “I’m here for peace, I’m not going to roll over. I’m going to take the gun out of the person’s hand so they can’t hurt anybody else.”

It’s Okay To Go Back If You Keep Moving Forward ends on a very hopeful note. “LA Rain” describes a loving embrace, a person who has become a safe place to hide. Burhenn seems to genuinely have found peace in her personal life and is convinced we might yet find it on a larger scale as well.

“Hope has clawed through some heavy shit to get to the other side,” said Burhenn, quoting something she saw online. “I think that same thing about love. Love protects the people we care about and the vulnerable.”

Systemic abuse truly animates Burhenn. She’s active on social media, posting her thoughts about healing and her opposition to what the current administration, led by an individual who has been found liable in a court of law for the type of abuse described in “Drinking Song.” Having already faced it up close, Burhenn doesn’t seem daunted by the moment.

“We’re in the thick of it,” she admitted. “But we are going to get those assholes out of power. This moment is terrible and temporary.” 

Above is the full episode as aired on WUSB’s Country Pocket, including both my interview with Laura Burhenn of The Mynabirds and the songs we discussed, starting with Ramona, Patron Saint of Silence, which covers Burhenn’s absence from the songwriting world. The interview, easily the most tearful I’ve ever conducted, begins with the second video in the playlist. You can hear the show live alternate Wednesdays at 8am on WUSB 90.1 FM or check the blog to watch it as a YouTube playlist. Visit http://www.WUSB.fm and https://www.themynabirds.org for more.

During our conversation, Sarah Morris referred to herself as a “feelings-helper-haver.” It’s a job description far too informally worded to align with therapist, but it’s not an entirely separate field. Morris is a songwriter, one who hones in on specifics and thoroughly explores emotions and patterns of thinking in great detail even if she doesn’t focus as much on the events behind them. As perhaps the world’s first self appointed feelings-helper-haver, Morris believes in capturing her precise experiences in order to reach others.

“If it’s coming up for me as a person, chances are it’s coming up for someone else and I’ll be able to more accurately serve them as a songwriter,” said Morris of her bursts of catharsis. “I want to be able to point that out to others who I love and sometimes I need that pointed out to me.”

Say Yes is an odyssey that encourages embracing love. It digs into anxieties and bitter breakups while simultaneously chasing the high of something special and defending the idea that it’s all worth it. Morris achieves that feat with exceptional lyrics and an album that feels dreamy, drifting on her high register and steadfast tendency to return to optimism. This isn’t the album to listen to in order to close a difficult chapter, but it would have to be among my top picks to have on while beginning to write a new one. 

The journey more or less begins with Morris seeing someone “Glow.” “There’s something about you lately/everybody’s saying there’s an easy peaceful way you move now/just like sun on water,” she sings, in awe of someone who is in the right place for themself. It’s heartening to hear a song that celebrates someone else’s happiness. In the context of the album, “Glow” starts Morris on a journey of healing, wanting what her friend has but without a hint of bitterness. 

“That song has a bit of envy in it but it’s also celebration. I wrote it around my birthday and I was not feeling particularly glowy myself, but it sure makes me happy to look over and see someone else killing it,” said Morris.“When someone’s really rooted in their awesomeness, they’re not even showing it off because they don’t have to. They can’t help but glow. If you surround yourself with people who are in that state it’s kind of contagious. So go by some glowy folk and celebrate them.”

As a spark for change, “Glow” is a warm but small one. Morris admits more probably needs to happen to shake someone out of a rut. 

“It really takes us a lot to finally make that move out of a situation,” she said. “As humans we are pretty willing to stay in things that don’t serve us well because it’s a lot of work to leave.”

Say Yes does not shy away from the fact that love can turn into something that doesn’t serve us. “The next thing I did was let out a howl/a full on scream leaving my mouth/you could say, you could say/a lot about a woman in her coming apart,” Morris sings on “Hard on a Heart.” The moment comes after a divorce. There’s neither celebration nor defeat here, just release.

“I thought about how it would feel to have a full catharthis of a moment, but in the back of your mind know this isn’t necessarily going to last,” said Morris. “There will be more complex follow up, but the fun of singing “Hard on a Heart” and tapping into that character is that for just a minute, she’s going with the purity of getting out of it. We’re supposed to feel our feelings.”

When it comes time to regain her glow, Morris arrives back at love. It doesn’t seem to be for lack of trying to find a safer place to rest her head. “I’ve scanned the wisdom of the ages/I have searched the stars above/and mostly found some variation of yes/the good stuff, the good stuff, love,” she sings on “Love.” 

“The One I Choose” is the standout of a very strong album for both its unusual concept and perfect plot twist. Morris essentially starts this song looking for the most ethical way to leave someone. She wants to slip out the back door, perhaps say it face to face, but anything to make a selfish act as painless as possible. “That’s the one I choose,” she sings of this hypothetical mercy. Perhaps it’s already obvious at this point, but there’s an awful lot of care in this relationship. So when Morris ultimately decides choosing to stay, it’s both hard won and fully rationalised. The fantasy fades into an even more satisfying reality. 

“I’m a mom. I had young kids at the time,” Morris explained. “Even if I would never ever, ever, ever leave, it’s still pretty normal to have those daydreams to mentally escape. But the truth is you’re never going to.”

Her thought experiment might end with stasis, but it’s still transformative. A listener will hear what it’s like to almost accidentally take stock of everything and come to appreciate it more. They’ll get a fuller sense of Morris’ anxieties and values. And perhaps they’ll start thinking a little bit about their own reasons for not escaping, even if there is a part of them that wants to.

“Two things could be true, and ultimately I think this person lands on the truest,” said Morris.

Oddly enough, I feel inclined to explain Morris’ most powerful idea with a quote from Winston Churchill: “Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Being single and explorations of freedom may have provided that moment of catharsis throughout the album, but none of it beats that simple and elegant concept people keep making their way toward. 

“The stars are back/and I for one refuse to take them for granted” Morris sings later on in the album. Love is “light cutting through the deep black,” even if it seems to be the very thing capable of stranding someone out there in the first place. 

Though the album contains 10 tracks, I would have stopped at 8. “Some Of That Is True” feels like the natural conclusion for this story. “The details they don’t matter now/so I paint them however I choose,” Morris sings. This time, she’s driving off into the sunset with a loved one. That fantasy escape is “somewhere only we know” rather than a life alone. The dreamer we heard earlier on exploring a way out is using that same imagination to make a good situation better. She’s softened but hasn’t lost what defines her. I can certainly feel her settling into an easy glow. 

Above is the full episode as aired on WUSB’s Country Pocket, including both my interview with Sarah Morris and the songs we discussed, starting with Hard on a Heart, which opens in the middle of a breakdown. The interview begins with the second video in the playlist. You can hear the show live alternate Wednesdays at 8am on WUSB 90.1 FM or check the blog to watch it as a YouTube playlist. Visit http://www.WUSB.fm and https://sarahmorrismusic.com for more.

It is not easy to come to terms with deep wounds. On “Tango,” Jo Fuller describes a difficult relationship where she felt doubted. 

“This person just made me feel lesser than,” said Fuller. “It was complex in that they tried to disguise that view of me, or maybe they didn’t want to have that view of me but they did. But I could just feel it.”

Not surprisingly, Fuller was never able to get an apology. That often isn’t something that easily springs forth from people who have disappointed us in the first place. But if that result isn’t particularly remarkable, Fuller’s success in achieving closure is. She realized that instead of confronting someone else, she needed to look inward and confront her emotions and her role in the situation. If that sounds like someone beating themself up, it’s not. “Own your hand and I’ll own mine,” she sings, stating “it takes two to tango.”

It’s the nuance in Fuller’s exploration of emotion that makes Wood of the Grain such an impressive and mature debut. 

“I needed to see how I was participating in letting them have such a big impact on my emotional world” said Fuller. “That’s enough for me. Realizing my role because it takes two to tango. That was all the closure I wound up needing.”

Fuller approaches herself and her emotions in many ways on the album. Sometimes, like on “Paper Tiger,” a direct confrontation of a thought pattern is needed. It’s the anthem of a woman who is beyond being weighed down by negative

“Can I stalk the streets of my mind? Can I begin to make conversation with the parts of myself that I’m scared of?” asked Fuller, referring to her lyrics. “Maybe these are parts of myself or recurring thoughts and feelings that I can come to know.” 

It’s that idea that proved to be the most powerful on her album. Fuller said she struggles with anxiety but I had enough experience with the subject that I didn’t need much of an explanation on how that feels. Admitting that our world is a bit on fire right now, Fuller didn’t set out to eradicate the feeling. Instead she practiced setting boundaries within herself.

“You can give yourself permission that it’s right and it’s rational and you can feel it,” said Fuller. “And you can also give yourself permission that if it feels debilitating, that there are also steps to take that might alleviate the amount to which you’re feeling that.” 

“Welcome to the Guest House, It’s the Best House” is a fresh application of a centuries old idea, one featured in a Rumi poem. “Come sit with me dear,” Fuller sings, inviting her emotions in for something between a heartfelt conversation and a negotiation. She describes the process as having made her emotions seem whole and tangible for the first time. “I’m sorry darling/I didn’t know it was okay to feel this way,” she sings. 

“There’s a lot of sadness for the way I have historically related to these feelings so I apologize,” said Fuller, meaning she apologized to her feelings. “I don’t want to feel anxiety. I don’t want to feel fear. I don’t want to feel loneliness. Contrary to that initial impulse to push away, it’s an invitation.” 

Wood of the Grain is an album about “development in context,” Fuller says, a recognition of pain and a path forward outlined by “the wisdom of bygone thinkers.” 

“The things that we consider broken and non ideal about ourselves. They’re not just random flaws, they are things that developed in response to something in our context. They’re actually worthing of our understanding or curiosity. They’re adaptations,” said Fuller. “How pervasive that ‘I’m broken, I’m fundamentally flawed’ feeling is in our culture is a product of how quickly we pathologize something instead of getting curious about something, honoring it. It doesn’t mean we have to believe it. It doesn’t have to rule our lives. It sure as hell is not brokenness.” 

The album ends on a satisfying and beautiful note, a love letter to those who supported her through the struggle.

“It’s provided me with the soil, the fertile ground of being able to get through some really hard things,” Fuller said of the feeling of community around her. “A lot of this album is aspirational but it’s becoming reality for me. I struggle with anxiety but I’m doing it. It’s pretty exciting what it’s making space for in my life, including exploring my relationship to God and a higher power.” 

Pixar has proven that with bright colors and a smart script, personifying emotions can be extremely effective. I’m not optimistic we get anything close to this mature and impactful for “Inside Out 3.” For those wishing for a version of the franchise aimed at adults, Wood of the Grain will more than do. 

If you’re seeing this before Friday, only our partial episode with Jo Fuller is available as some of her music remains unreleased. For now, enjoy one song and Jo’s music choice along with her interview. Later we will add two more songs. Check out our guest at https://www.jo-fuller.com/ and my radio station at https://www.wusb.fm/

As Donald Trump transforms America with overwhelming backing from the Evangelical population, a new more tolerant voice in Christianity is gaining strength. Pope Leo is the most visible example, regularly preaching kindness toward immigrants and respect for democratic norms. As churches have been stormed by ICE, clergy are trying to preserve their sanctuaries. Reverends David Black and Jorge Bautista were shot in the face with chemical irritants while protesting ICE but continue to speak out. James Talrico, a minister himself, is running for Senate in Texas on a platform of biblical love. It’s not quite the majority of Christians in America, but their voices are growing louder and the progressive teachings of Jesus are seeing more press coverage than at any time in recent history. 

My latest guest, John Francis O’Mara, is both a musician and Episcopal priest. He’s been spreading that progressive message through rural Virginia to congregations that at times walk out on his homilies. His album features an image of a brown Mary on the cover. The “Forbidden Hymns” he writes are spiritual battle cries with a political edge.

“The zeitgeist and the horror and the xenophobia and the brutality and the cruelty largely is coming from a MAGA Christian white nationalist agenda,” said O’Mara. “What it’s doing for me is putting in stark terms as never before that my role as a Christian and a priest is to embody and do the things that demonstrate that there’s another kind of expression of Christian faith and justice. There’s another world full of people who are deeply troubled by what’s going on and moved to action. I’m one of those kind.”

“Walking in Babylon” captures the surreal feeling of being a Christian in a nation that justifies killing and persecution in the name of the Lord. Meanwhile, he’s focusing on building community and supporting the marginalized. “In the shadow where the empire spreads/Me and my brothers are breaking bread/It’s blue and white, but I’m seeing red/Democracy’, is that what you said?” O’Mara sings. 

“It’s making my job as a person who believes in justice and empathy and the dignity of every human person, the thing that Jesus and spiritual people have been proponents of, it makes my job easier in that I’m called to not cower,” said O’Mara. 

Is O’Mara a bit radical for a priest? Perhaps. Jesus was very much a radical in his time. O’Mara’s alarm at the situation in America and his desire to fight it is building. “There’s a holy fire inside of me/Hotter than the barrel of your gun,” sings O’Mara on “Mighty Power.” He sounds like a man ready to flip some tables.

“I’m called to be bold,” said O’Mara. “This is a time when people like myself who have a claim of believing the red letters, this novel idea that maybe he meant what he said, this is a time for us to be courageous.”

He’s not at all surprised that the administration is taking aim at protesters and creatives. 

“They have always feared the artists, especially the artists who have convictions and are willing to die for them,” said O’Mara. “More and more, I’m not pulling any punches. I believe that a better world is possible.” 

The album is much more than a collection of protest songs. O’Mara prays and converses with holy figures including the Blessed Mary. He laments the state of things and tries to draw strength from their spiritual relationship.

“I was born on the feast day of St. Juan Diego. He’s the Aztec peasant farmer who received the vision of Our Lady of Guadalupe, so I have a deep affinity for her,” said O’Mara. “Mary is an archetype of the divine feminine. Protector, nurturer, life giver, the womb of creativity. That feminine presence in our spirituality, our narratives, in our hierarchy, it’s still so unbalanced.”

O’Mara is trying hard to rebalance. He doesn’t have a set parish and often visits other churches that don’t have full time priests. He offers his congregants stern words and stands up for his principles. When a church invited him to lead a service that featured military fight songs, he told them to change the program or find someone else to preach it. 

“Celebrating the machines and mechanism of war is different than honoring soldiers, especially wounded soldiers or families of soldiers who died,” said O’Mara “I want to live in a world someday, and I believe it’s possible, that we won’t need those fight songs and we won’t have to go to funerals of dead soldiers because war will be no more. I firmly believe that’s possible. I have to. That’s the promise of the gospel: to let it be on Earth as it is in heaven.” 

O’Mara finds himself in a difficult position trying to share a different interpretation of the gospel than most American protestants are familiar with. At a time when many evangelical faith leaders openly support and even lay hands on Trump, O’Mara is trying to draw attention back to basics like ‘do unto others.’ 

“The heart of the gospel is love. It’s a universal and unconditional love,” said O’Mara. “And that includes the people in the pews. It requires of everyone to extend that same unconditional love, especially to those that are other than them.”

There are calls to action on forbidden hymns, at times quite explicit.

“Do you have the courage to share what you’ve been given?” sings O’Mara on “No One Gets Out Of Here Alive.”

“It’s an invitation to people listening to my record to take this shit personally,” said O’Mara. “It’s the beginning of the end of any society when the pain of others doesn’t register with the whole.”

Perhaps my presence in Europe inspired O’Mara to speak on the topic of emigrating, but he brought it up unprompted.

“I thought about leaving. My family got here two generations ago from Ireland. Sometimes when I have that imaginary or not so imaginary conversation with my ancestors, I imagine them assuring me that it’s okay to come home,” said O’Mara. “But at the same time, the disenfranchised and disinherited people of America, those are my allies, those are my kin. My intention is to make choices about who I spend my time with and my money for.” 

An idealist, O’Mara believes in bringing messages of anti-racism into even parishes that might be hostile to it. He’s perfectly content to preach through walkouts or groans and questions whether some congregants understand that coming to church is about more than spiritual affirmation and checking an attendance box. 

“I’m glad you’re in the building, but that’s not why you’re here,” said O’Mara, recounting the scenario. “We’re here to make a better world a reality.”

Still, O’Mara is at his most powerful when he’s earnestly praying for a better tomorrow on “Let It Be So.” It’s not as pointed a song, but it gets to the heart of his beliefs: “Yes, another world will come/another world, I swear/Where the wars we’ve been wagin’ for ages and ages/Will finally refrain to an end,” he sings. 

It’s this kind of faith, whether in God or the constitution, that is required to stand up in times when the price for speaking out is so heavy. O’Mara seems like he’ll be particularly difficult to silence. Beyond being determined to be bold, O’Mara seems ready for the new role of progressive spiritual warrior.

“I want to have eloquent anger,” said O’Mara. “I want to have decisive outrage and an impatience with injustice.” 

Above is the full episode as aired on WUSB’s Country Pocket, including both my interview with John Francis O’Mara and the songs we discussed, starting with “Walking In Babylon,” which finds our society in a state of biblical disrepair. The interview begins with the second video in the playlist. You can hear the show live alternate Wednesdays at 8am on WUSB 90.1 FM or check the blog to watch it as a YouTube playlist. Visit http://www.WUSB.fm and https://johnfrancisomara.com for more.

“Where Do You Come From” is the simple question posed by the title of Glen Peters’ latest album. As it’s posed in the song itself, the question is loaded. It’s an act of exclusion from British society. Peters delivers a far more complex answer to the query, arguing that he comes from India, his birthplace; Britain, his adopted home; the human race; and most poignantly, the sum of his experiences. “Home is my echo/my last refrain,” he sings on an earnest track.

“Most people regard home as something physical. At any point in time, it probably is,” said Peters. “But for me, home is a journey and it’s the trail that we’ve left, the memories. In a way, those things are more important to me. A lot of wonderful things come to mind.”

Peters has been embracing the UK folk music tradition for half a century now and sees in it a bit of the harmonies of the Northern Indian Roma people. In a world that increasingly wants to categorize and exclude people based on skin color or birthplace, Peters presents a powerful argument that identity is a multifaceted thing based on ancestry, experience, and the others around him. Both India and Britain are important to him.

“One is a physical place and the other is a spiritual place. I think the two move in and out of each other,” said Peters. “I was born in India, I went to school in India, and a lot of my early vivid memories are in India. People, family, music, and my early childhood.” 

Of course growing up doesn’t stop there. On “When You’re Sixteen,” Peters recalls the experience of becoming more independent and exploring a new homeland for the first time. London “set me free,” he sings on the autobiographical track.

“Going from one environment to another, also within myself going from a teenager to an adult, was a very exciting time to be,” said Peters. “The conflation of those two made quite an exciting time for me.” 

Peters does more than sing about his complex identity on the album. He also plays with it, switching from singing in a fairly standard British accent to emphasizing his Indian roots on songs more deeply rooted in the traditions of his homeland. In “Oh To Be An Aries,” he explores concept of astrology, extremely popular in India, through the lens of what would have happened if moving to a different time zone would have changed his sign. 

Peters’ discussion about having to conform like a Pisces rather than be outgoing like an Aries mirrors the idea of moving countries quite neatly. A big fish (or tiger, so to speak) in newly independent India may seem less impressive in a big pond like London. Peters admitted he had to take actions to conform in his new home.

“There’s a certain level of excitement in which I would have been brought up to speak. I felt I had to moderate some of that,” said Peters. “So yes, I did change the way I interacted with people.”

As a recent transplant to Britain myself, I couldn’t help but knowingly laugh at some of his confusion back in the 70s.

“In Britain it was quite common for someone to ask you to do something. ‘Would you like to move box A to room B?’” said Peters. “The ‘like’ wasn’t an expression in terms of giving you an option, it was asking you to do that. Initially I found that quite confusing. ‘No, I wouldn’t like to do that.’”

Today Peters is very much a roaring Aries in Wales. He owns a solar plant build in an estate that also hosts artistic events, including the debut of this album.

“Music, very broadly speaking, is an important part of my life in terms of entertainment, having fun, making friends, reaching out to people,” said Peters. “But it’s also very therapeutic. It wasn’t the main focus of my life. It wasn’t something I dreamt about all day long. But it was woven into the texture of being me.” 

Musician and businessman. Immigrant and successful Briton. Peters comes from there, but also here.

“I will use [the] two parts of me when I feel I need to,” said Peters. “You can only make good use of these things instead of trying to be one person.”

Also woven into the album are episodes of British history that somehow involve people from the crown jewel of the old empire. In “Sepoy’s Lament,” he reflects on decisions to defend the imposed social order in India. Far more inspirational is “Kahn Of The Wire,” which tells the story of Noor Inayat Kahn, a brave young British woman who shared a skin tone with Peters. He marveled at Kahn’s ability to confront the teachings of her faith when presented with a threat as serious as the Nazis.

“Sufi is a Muslim sect that’s very mystical and strongly pacifist in their beliefs. The war started, she became aware of some of the nastier sides of war, and decided to put aside her pacifist tendencies and became a radio operator,” said Kahn. “She was a spy. She was airlifted into France and was the first woman to be a spy in Nazi occupied Paris and she passed vital troop movements in the days before the D-Day landing.”

She was captured, escaped, captured again, tortured, and killed without giving up any information. Peters learned about Kahn when Prince Charles dedicated a statue to her and has since pondered about her deeply, even wondering how that pacifist faith might have helped her during her darkest hours. 

“Every time I sing it I’m quite moved,” he said of the song he wrote for her.

Peters believes that current Britons don’t necessarily learn about the role subjects of the empire played in shaping the strong nation the UK is today.

“I think there is a lack of understanding,” said Peters. “Even I wasn’t aware that there were 1.5 million people from the Commonwealth who played a huge contribution in both WWI and WWII. But that’s changing right now.”

Identity is a complicated thing, especially in a country that once laid claim to one quarter of humanity. Candidates standing for election in Britain today have gone so far as to say that even some people who were born in Britain may not actually be British. Others in territories still controlled by the UK can argue their families became British simply because a ship landed on the shore and the men inside declared themselves in charge.

Peters’ concept of identity on this album feels more fair as it takes into consideration the experiences and opinions of an individual as they identify themselves. He sings on this album about being the “wrong shade of brown” in an accent you might not associate with someone his shade of brown. It stands out as a wonderful example of how judging someone by their birthplace and appearance may not give you anywhere close to enough information to understand their story, values, and experiences.

Above is the full episode as aired on WUSB’s Country Pocket, including both my interview with Glen Peters and the songs we discussed, starting with “Home Is,” which goes on for a few minutes because the answer is not so simple. The interview begins with the second video in the playlist. You can hear the show live every other Wednesday at 8am on WUSB 90.1 FM or check this site to watch it as a YouTube playlist. Visit http://www.WUSB.fm and https://rhosygilwen.co.uk for more. Peters doesn’t have much of an online presence as a musician, so I included his arts centre instead.