Darling Don’t Be Silent*

The creation of something new often involves a letting go of something or someone that has been holding us back.  The first time I came across Mairi Campbell’s work was when my fiddle tutor recommended that I look her up if I wanted to experience something a little different from the mainstream trad collections I was familiar with. As luck would have it, Mairi was touring with her show Pulse around the same time and so off I went with a dear friend to Eden Court Theatre in Inverness. Little did I know it at the time, but there began a delightful foray into the more creative side of my own life, and like a magpie to shiny things, I found myself drawn to learn the creative techniques Mairi had to share, and tentatively began to apply them to my own life.

As I got to know her work a little more, I became intrigued, captivated even, by the song Darling Don’t be Silent from her 2016 album, Pulse. (https://mairicampbell.scot/shop/#cds) Initially, I was mesmerised by the simplicity of the tune and the way in which time seemed suspended for three sweet minutes. In the way that many of us play and repeat new material until its charm gives way to something different, I listened to it daily, at times of joy and despair, and waited until my interest would run dry. 

Not so. My fascination and comfort from the song remain as strong as ever and nearly eight years since I first heard it, I invited Mairi to discuss the song’s roots and whether she thinks it has resonance beyond what was in her mind when she first wrote it.  Graciously, she accepted.

I was keen to know how the song came about. Was it a catchy little tune that simply appeared to her one day on the Portobello Promenade or was there deeper narrative she was trying to express?  She tells me clearly that connecting with Kath Burlinson on her Authentic Artist course was a turning point for her in her career that helped to break her open and in turn, break new ground and bring forth new material.

Mairi says, “I was classically trained in viola and very immersed in the traditional music world, so as a hybrid player I was neither a classical only nor a trad-only player. It felt to me that there wasn’t space to accommodate a wider bandwidth and I was frustrated by that”.

As I read my notes afterwards, I search for connections to what she is saying from my own experience, and I listen again to the song.  As she plucks out the tune and establishes the beat, I start to feel into the spaces between the notes and the words, which feel as important as the sounds and lyrics themselves. Something soulful strikes me as I get carried away on the melody, simultaneously enjoying and being distracted by its sweet divergences, but then always back to the beat which keeps its own time, before I’m left wanting more. If only I could have found a way back then, to speak or to write what I’d kept inside for so long, I think to myself.

My early encounters with the song coincided with a thesis I was writing on women’s experiences of fertility treatment, a subject close to my heart. I was struck by how my own silence had caused great suffering in me and was desperately trying to make sense of what was happening to me as treatment after treatment failed. As I interviewed countless women on their experience of fertility treatment, I was unable to find the words to express my own difficulties.  To acknowledge one’s own suffering is to acknowledge its existence and while I wasn’t ready to do that then, I did find comfort in a beautifully composed and deliciously resonant, perhaps even universally appealing, soundtrack.

I was terrified to speak my feelings out loud, lest I be judged too intense, too vulgar, too much, and so the lines “I don’t care if you scream, it’ll help you hold your ground” and “I don’t care if you look crazy, it’ll help you find your feet” struck a chord somewhere deep in my psyche that comforts me to this day, as I navigate new challenges and make my own new beginnings. As women, we aren’t often encouraged to express ourselves, far less do it imperfectly, so the idea of making any sound at all and being free to do so, seemed like a simple yet bold invitation.

Mairi goes on to reveal that in her fifties she had to learn to dissolve who she thought others needed her to be musically, and to find a new place in her that represented what she wanted to express through her work. Using improvisation has, she says, freed up her voice and her movement.  “After twenty years of learning to play in time with others as part of the scene, all of a sudden I found myself wanting to connect to my own beat, to discover this pulse within me that had always been there, if a little dulled by the conventions of either the trad or the classical scene.”

By this point in our conversation, I want to jump up and down in my seat and shout yes, that’s what I felt, this is what I’ve been looking for, this is what I felt in the song.  I know that I’m not alone in thinking this as a short post I made on social media later revealed a wider following for the tune’s resonance. 

We chat about whether it is different now for the next generation and she mentions, with warm pride, how her daughters are making their way in the world, full of dreams and with a clear sense of what is important to them. She mentions wistfully the halcyon days of the punk generation and how little energy there appears to be, since lockdown, for speaking out against the machine in ways that musicians of her generation were once famous for. It makes me think of my endless fascination with, and fear of, the current culture wars being played out in mainstream and social media. I wonder how the power of art and music can interplay with the personal and help us find ways to express ourselves that set us free, not bind us to the norms we’ve become accustomed to.

I feel certain that this is an anthem for our time, and indeed, for any woman who wants to unlock the power of her own voice. Seeking refuge in art, through music, and creative pursuits, can offer us all new perspectives.  I invite you to find your own inspiration and to check out Mairi’s work below.

*Ends*

With thanks to Mairi Campbell, pioneering musician and wise woman, can be found here @mairimusic or www.mairicampbell.scot

Part of the Lift a Sister Up series.