‘TOO many protest singers, not enough protest songs,’ sang Edwyn Collins on A Girl Like You.
As the political climate has darkened and become more tumultuous over the past couple of years, there has been surprisingly little musical response.
It would take a lot more space than afforded here to explore the reasons why, with a few honourable exceptions such as Declan Welsh’s anti-fascist call-to-resistance No Pasaran, that music has remained, outwardly at least, largely apolitical.
Maybe Amanda Palmer was wrong to say that Donald Trump would “make punk rock great again”, a somewhat crass remark the well-cushioned singer was pilloried for, detractors noting the fact that she and author husband Neil Gaiman would spend much of his first term in Australia. Or maybe people have just been slow off the mark.
Not so Jacqueline “Jack” Irvine, who released the abrasive, ugly Grrrl Trouble on January 20, the day of Breaking Wind’s inauguration under the name Brave Little Note.
Over-squelchy synths and sinister swooshes, she breathes fire: “What’s the matter, can’t take a joke?/Only the ugly ones can’t take a joke/Got 99 problems?/Is education one?”
If Trump and Bannon heard it, there’d be an executive order against her within the hour.
“Though I wrote it the week he was elected, I held on to it for a while as I wasn’t sure about putting it out,” says Irvine, who is also in Rod Jones’ The Birthday Suit and has spent years composing for film and TV.
“I thought it might open me up to trolling. But after some reflection I realised that was what I was partly angry about.”
Grrrl Trouble isn’t just a reaction to a man who dismisses describing sexual assault as “locker room talk”, it’s a reaction to a lifetime of living as a female, from mundane micro-aggressions to serious misogyny.
I too have found my mind unspooling all those experiences, from the first time I was shouted at by a grown man in the street to “cheer the fuck up” (I was 11) to, on the day before women and men took to the streets around the world in solidarity, being told I was a “triggered snowflake” for joining them.
“It’s a power thing, it’s all to make you quieten down and feel like it’s you who are in the wrong,” says Irvine. “Or that you should feel grateful. After the election I suddenly re-experienced when I’d been on the receiving end of misogyny throughout my life. And there was a lot of times. And that shocked me. I thought, ‘I’m just one ordinary woman in this world. If this has happened to me all these times, how many times has it been experienced?’.”
“As women we’re expected to de-escalate things, to keep things non-confrontational and keep our anger down. But the upshot is that we carry all that anger around, and it has to come out.”
Grrrl Trouble seethes with fury, in marked contrast to the other songs Irvine has on her SoundCloud; beautiful, glacial and tender tracks such as Our Romantic Horticulture or Push Me Pull You which are perhaps more in keeping with her past as a chorister and classically trained musician.
“The thing about all my songs is that they come from a very honest emotional place,” she explains. “A lot of my other tracks have been quite heartbreaky and that sound has come from that place, it has felt more appropriate, whereas this one just came from rage. I was looking for angry synth sounds I could bash together and I thought, ‘Yes, this is how I’m feeling’.
Irvine may not be the stereotypical youthful rebel. Based in Edinburgh, she’s a mother of three and a yoga teacher, and is just trying to keep her household going while feeling a responsibility to younger generations.
She consulted her children before taking the plunge to release the track, one which mulls the prospect of taking a sledgehammer to the President’s ceiling.
“My boys were both like, ‘Get it out!’,” she says. “They’ve done gender studies at school, which is amazing. Everyone should be taught that. And it does strike me how quiet things have been. There’s not been that political edge to art and music for a long time, everything’s just been moseying away in the middle of the road. I mean, the week after he was elected I found myself going way back to Rage Against The Machine.
“But maybe, people are beginning to wake up after this very rude awakening, this slap in the face. It made me realise how complacent I’ve been all these years.”
Grrrl Trouble is out now
------------------------------------------------
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here