Bigmouth Strikes Again: Carrie Marshall's blog

Carrie’s books | Carrie’s band

Category: Music

Gratuitous Girls Aloud references

  • We are trickster gods

    This superb piece by Niko Stratis is a must-read about the no-point-in-reading news stories telling you that some old rich guy or other thinks trans women are icky and probably murderous.

    We are trickster gods, barbed and poisonous, waiting to rip the seams of the tender fabric of this gentle world. But we are never the interviewer, never the storyteller, rarely the writer and seldom real.

    …After the run of Cooper news, it was announced that legendary guitar player and songwriter Carlos Santana went on a baffling on-stage tirade about trans people. This wasn’t the result of a poorly planned question, by all accounts this was unprompted. When I saw the news first, it was in Billboard, and it was in their “Pride” section.

    I ask you, what “Pride” do we take away from this knowledge? There is no value gained here certainly, and I am not surprised that Santana doesn’t like trans people because I am rarely surprised by such facts anymore. There is no easier path to a headline than making baseless comments about trans people into whatever microphone will have you.

    Stratis’s piece makes the well-worn but still important point that right now, trans people are among the most talked about and least listened to group in society: publication after publication uses us for outrage marketing by asking famous people whether they hate trans people and love JK Rowling, or the famous people do it themselves because they have a product to push. But the voices you never hear over the shouts of the supposedly silenced are those of trans people. Far too much media is about us, without us.

  • T time

    I was delighted to be a small part of BBC Scotland’s new podcast, The Rise and Fall of T in the Park. It’s about more than just the festival itself; it’s about the impact it had on the Scottish music scene and on Scotland as a destination for touring bands. I’m in there talking about TiTP being my very first festival, and what it was like for a small town band to play one of the tents after winning a place in the T Break competition.

    The first four episodes are live now, and the remainder will go live on 18 July. I hope you enjoy it.

  • Not cancelled

    Earlier this week, the singer Lizzo released a record containing a word she didn’t realise was a slur against disabled people. When disabled people told her on social media that it was derogatory, she effectively said “Oh my god! I’m so sorry!” and re-released the song with the word changed.

    If you believe the endless pieces about cancel culture in the press, you’d expect Lizzo to be on the receiving end of ongoing abuse. But that’s not what happened. The very same fans and disability advocates who had criticised her thanked her. This, by writer Hannah Diviney, is typical:

    Thank you so much for hearing us Lizzo and for understanding that this was only ever meant gently and being open to learning, it honestly means the world.

    Had Lizzo been a famous comedian or an opinion columnist, I suspect things would have been very different: they’d have used the slur deliberately and then rather than apologising, they’d have doubled down on the offence and planned their lucrative “I’ve been cancelled!” tour and media appearances. But Lizzo is a member of multiple marginalised groups, so she did what the comedians and columnists usually don’t: she listened, realised she’d made a mistake and apologised.

    In other words, she tried to be a decent human being.

  • Dreams that glitter

    I’m really sad to read about the death of Sarah Harding, who has died of breast cancer aged just 39 (please, please, please get yourself checked out whether you’re male, female or neither). Her band, Girls Aloud, were one of the finest pop bands we’ve ever had: they had the same crying-on-the-dancefloor thing as the best ABBA songs and made some of the most anthemic, life-affirming and joyous bangers you’ll ever hear. I have never wanted to be in a band as much as I wanted to be one of Girls Aloud.

    RIP, Sarah.

  • SausageFest 2021

    My talented musical pal Becci Wallace made this. It’s funny because it’s so very true.

  • I’m braw*

    I’m delighted to be featured as today’s Woman of the Day by Braw Gals In Music: Jordan’s Instagram/Facebook/Twitter has highlighted some incredible women and non-binary people, and I’m very proud to be included.

    * Braw is Scots for fine, good or excellent.

  • It’s okay to cry

    Glaswegian musician and producer SOPHIE has died. She was an extraordinary talent and this is a very sad loss.

    Munroe Bergdorf:

    Our community has lost an icon, a pioneer and a visionary bright light. Heartbroken. SOPHIE you will be missed.

    “Thank you for sharing your talent with us. I hope we get to meet again one day. Rest in peace sister.

    Inevitably the transphobes are already all over this on social media, sharing their joy at the death of a young woman and being hateful to the people mourning her.

  • Say a prayer for the lost and lonely

    My band released a Christmas EP last year, and I think the closing track is even more appropriate this year. It’s called A Christmas Prayer.

    The lyrics are:

    I hope you have a good one
    I hope your christmas is fun
    I hope you’re with your family
    and there’s something for you under the tree
    and I hope you thank your lucky stars

    Say a prayer for the lost and lonely
    pray for the battered and the bruised
    raise your glasses and remember
    the ones that didn’t make it through

    I don’t believe in a god up there
    but I offer up a Christmas prayer
    to fill every aching heart with love
    fill every hateful heart with love
    fill every broken heart with love
    fill every empty heart with love

    I hope you have a happy Christmas and that 2021 is better for all of us.

     

  • “Maybe you haven’t found your people yet, but they will be there.”

    There’s a nice piece in Refinery29 by Robin Craig. It’s about chosen families, the networks of supportive people that can mean so much to LGBT+ people.

    A chosen family is, as the name suggests, a family that someone chooses for themselves. It blurs the lines between friends, siblings and parents. For trans people, relationships with biological families can often be strained or marked by transphobia. Chosen families can step in as replacement care networks that provide emotional and community support when biological family ties break down.

    There’s a song on my band’s current EP about this. It’s a very noisy guitar song called Tribe.

    The key line, which is also the chorus, is simple and true:

    Everybody needs to love and be loved.

  • “I wasn’t dreaming of a quiet Christmas”

    My band released a Christmas EP last year, and I wanted to make Christmas releases a tradition for us. This year there’s just one song, a quiet acoustic thing about being unable to spend Christmas with the one(s) you love. It’s a very simple arrangement and production but I think that fits the vibe of the song.