Music / Interviews
‘I wrote the song to understand where my internal fears were coming from’
Erin Rae is a unique folk singer from Nashville who blends folk-, indie-, and psych-rock-influenced sounds with “old-style Southern songwriting”.
Her classic Southern-style contrasts sharply with non-traditional lyrics that are no less shaped by her Tennessee heritage and explore her sexuality.
“Growing up when I did and where I did, the spectrum of sexuality wasn’t understood the way it is today,” explains Erin, who is performing at The Louisiana on Wednesday, September 5.
is needed now More than ever
One of the singles from Erin’s new album, Putting On Airs, deals with her understanding of being gay. “I wrote (Bad Mind) to understand where my internal fears were coming from. I grew up with liberal parents, but we did grow up in the South, in the Bible Belt, and it is hard to escape that influence and from age 11, I internalised that conversation.
“When I wrote Bad Mind, I was 25 years old, but I was still struggling to understand my own sexuality. I wanted to ask myself, how could I still be dealing with that when I know my sexuality is not a problem – when I know to know better.”
Erin explains the second verse of the song is about her aunt who, in the late-1990s, lost custody of her daughter because of her own sexuality. The case was taken to the Supreme Court of Alabama.
Erin tells Bristol24/7 that addressing her and her aunt’s sexuality as an adult is important: “I understood some of what was happening to my aunt, but I didn’t know how to process that with an eight-year-old brain.”
The singer-songwriter says at times she has tried “maybe too intensively” to understand herself, but that writing and performing the album has made her “realise that it might be time to feel some freedom and view [her childhood] through a different lens”.
Despite the tension in the song, Erin says, she loves returning to Tennessee. “I love home, I love the South and I’m fortunate to be part of a great music community,” but reflects that tensions still exist, “with the undercurrent of religion and racism.” There is a lot of work to do, Erin concludes, “but there is so much beauty in the South, and in its music,” in particular.
As a developing artist, Erin listened to a lot of Southern singer-songwriters, like Elizabeth Cotton, Mississippi John Hurt, Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie who express the “beauty and simplicity” of everyday life in the region.
One song that typifies her approach to songwriting is Canned Goods by Greg Brown – “the chorus just goes on about his Grandma putting things in jars which is a distinctly Southern thing to do in summer.”
When writing Putting On Airs, Erin says she spent a lot of time listening to European artists like Richard Hawley, Broadcast and Francoise Hardy which have created such a unique sound that has won her plaudits from Rolling Stone, Billboard, and others.
Anchor Me Down is the final song on the album and one that nearly did not make it to the album. “We were having such a hard time with the song and we’d been working at it for ages, but with no luck. The guys got up and recorded it and presented it to me in the morning and it was perfect.
“It matches perfectly with the sentiment of the song. It was an emotional conclusion to the album because the song is written about those people that support you.”
https://soundcloud.com/erin-rae/sets/putting-on-airs/s-lCMDN
Read more: Interview: Hannah Trigwell
Main photo of Erin Rae by Marcus Maddox
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