Claire Vine could have gone with any tone when writing and compiling “We Carve Our Path,” a thoughtful and direct collection of original protest songs. Vine’s compositions describe modern issues like climate change and immigration, while traditional inclusions speak more to the plight of women. What makes this work so special is that she didn’t go for catchy hooks or even passion or anger. Vine uses vocal loops and sparse instrumentation to produce an ominous otherworldly soundscape, turning “We Carve Our Path” into an urgent warning. Discordant harmonies can occasionally make for an uncomfortable listen, but Vine is not trying to comfort anyone here. She’s telling a story as honestly as possible, it just doesn’t happen to be leading toward a happy ending.
When Vine speaks on climate issues, she does so with some authority. She’s pursuing a master’s degree in sustainability and behaviour change, or rather the lack thereof. When she says humanity has its “Eyes Wide Open” as we wreck the planet, she understands that even well meaning people can choose harmful actions.
“I know a lot about what I should be doing better, but I’m not by any means a perfect person,” said Vine. “I don’t necessarily do all of the behaviours I think I should be doing, but it’s also quite hard to motivate yourself as an individual. There are other people out there having far more negative impacts than me; it’s quite hard to try to make myself completely perfect. Maybe too much blame falls to the individual person. As long as big conglomerates are having huge negative impacts, it’s quite hard for me to feel like getting the train will make too much of a difference.”
Vine doesn’t try to proscribe solutions to inaction, but does have some explanations. She also knows how to damn those who may actually be able to turn things around: “But do coins really count when there’s no food for sale?/There’s no grain for the harvest, no water in the well”
“We know what we need to be doing. We have a lot of science to back up what we should be doing globally, but the change isn’t really happening,” said Vine, “My feeling is that it’s the broader systems and structures. It’s quite hard to change anything in a capitalistic system, really.”
Migration is another issue that Vine sees as troubling and related. In both her native Britain and my native United States, it’s come to dominate the conversation at the behest of the far right.
I think they’re very linked things. Social and environmental justice are part of the same picture for different reasons,” said Vine. “The effects of climate change are really going to affect people in the global south. It’s initially going to impact people who weren’t really the people who caused the problem in the first place. I think some people struggle to care about that it’s more likely to impact people who are not white.”
What Vine didn’t add was that the climate issues we are ignoring may in fact lead to further migration toward the increasingly intolerant Global North. So when Vine uses vocal loops and sour harmonies to tell the story of migrants, it’s with good reason. Some drown. Some wind up in hotels surviving on very little. Others find themselves in even worse places than where they began. Donald Trump has sent immigrants convicted of no crimes to an El Salvadoran mega prison that operates with no regard to human rights. A formal official with the administration posed for a glamour shot with chained prisoners stacked body on top of body in the background.
The situation in the UK is not that dire yet, though there have been attacks on detention centres and communities. When an asylum seeker attacked a British citizen with a knife in Belfast, he was rightly arrested and will face a serious penalty. The part that went horribly wrong was that riots against immigrant communities broke out, leading to burning buildings and serious threats to completely innocent people, including women and children. The crime was horrendous, but the anger was not directed toward the perpetrator. It’s also worth noting that in both countries, a crime by a cisgender white person almost never leads to calls for violence or regulation against their community, except perhaps to make a satirical point.
“There’s a rise in the violent attitudes toward migrants. It’s quite scary and I don’t really know how to approach it,” said Vine, whose song “Lost At Sea” name drops individuals from the previous Conservative government and does not address more recent events.
It is, however, characteristically intense and direct: “Empty words pay service to the dead/while on the border more patrols are places instead.” The building vocal loops on the track serve to build tension. In real life, Vine seeks to lessen the drama and encourage understanding.
“I’m wondering about the circumstances that got him to that place and what his mental health was like,” said Vine. “It’s breeding more of that type of violence. If we’re more open and welcoming to people when they get here and in need, maybe they would settle easier. It’s all just blown out of proportion because it seems like they’re attacking families that are not white that have nothing to do with this anyway.”
Vine fears the left lacks skills in messaging, unable to create the same level of disgust in their voters for the sorts of actions like the Belfast riots.
I feel like we’re struggling on the left with a cohesive narrative. I think that’s something where Nigel Farage is a really good storyteller. He’s got this charismatic energy where he can galvanise people because he’s convincing, even when he’s just chatting nonsense,” said Vine. “I like Zack Polanski from the Green Party. I think we need more people from the left to be working together rather than splitting hairs over exactly how to do things because it seems divided. I feel sad about the Labour Party because it’s just not Labour. I miss the Jeremy Corbyn era because they’re not genuine. It would be nice to have a leader who I actually just believed.”
Vine noted that the odd sound of her album led to some displeased reviews, though I find the discomfort to be the point. If it’s about crafting a narrative around these topics, the nightmarish “Lost at Sea” or extraordinarily tense “Let No Man Steal Your Thyme” do a better job of telling the story than something more pleasant to listen to. Some stories are meant to be comforting and told over and over, like a binge-worthy sitcom or a classic folk song. Though Vine is very much working with a folk medium, she’s not looking to produce a casual listen. This album and her performances feel designed for impact. A listener may only need to hear her album once to develop dread about the direction of the world and humanity. There has always been room for distinctive imagery and harrowing tales in the world of cinema and other prestige forms on entertainment. Folk music should not be seen as an art form too accessible or rigid for a purposeful deviation from formula. Vine says her sound comes quite organically.
“It’s not necessarily a conscious decision. I don’t know what the chords are most of the time,” said Vine. “I think I lean toward the slightly more weird slightly darker stuff. It tends to go more with the subject matter.”
She performs solo with a vocal looper, so her shows actually sound this way.
“I tried to make something fairly similar to the way I perform live with a bit extra instrumentation,” said Vine. “I don’t like it when I buy the record and it sounds completely different, so I wanted something that was representative of my live sound.”
Extending Vine’s uneasy sound to folk standards actually feels like a natural fit.
“It’s often the way with folk music, it’s actually kind of dark, not really a happy song,” said Vine. “But it’s often presented in kind of an upbeat happy way. I wanted to do something more representative of what the narrator was feeling.”
In that way, her work is against the grain but not necessarily revisionist. She made an exception to that rule in telling the story of “Fanny Blair,” an 11 year old girl who accuses a man of rape and winds up executed when her community believes him innocent. Vine added an extra verse that essentially says that Fanny deserved to be listened to.
“It’s very sympathetic to the narrator who’s a man,” Vine said of the standard. “He literally names her as an 11 year old girl. In what world can we believe him over a girl who’s literally 11? These stories from the past still are relevant; they just keep coming around. Why aren’t we learning from them? I just wanted to do a version of it, I added that one verse on the end, I just don’t think he’s the victim.”
The notion that these classic tragedies still have parallels in our society means it’s all the more important that Vine puts that harsh edge on her interpretations. There’s every reason to still be sounding the alarm about how women are treated at the same time as questioning more modern problems like climate change. Vine at one point believed that these songs may become relics of a different past, but seems to have lost that faith.
“I have felt hope that things are shifting. The younger generation seems really switched on. But the way things have spiralled in the last couple of years, I feel like we’re becoming even more polarised,” said Vine. “In some ways we’re progressing and in some ways we’re going backward. So I don’t really know if these songs will stop being relevant. It would be nice.”
Above is the full episode as aired on WUSB’s Country Pocket, including both my interview with Claire Vine, my first in which both the musician and I were located in Wales for the interview, and the songs we discussed, starting with Eyes Wide Open, which describes human behaviour in the face of climate change. 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://claire-vine.co.uk for more.
Country Pocket 