Song of the Water

It has been my pleasure to know and follow Clare for years. I still play old Cassette's as well as the beautiful new CD. Loved listening to this this morning.

Thank you, Mark, for inviting me to do this interview with you, and for featuring some of my songs on your radio show. It was good for me to think about the stories behind the songs again, and I enjoyed talking with you about those and other things. And, there are a few things that I wish I had managed to articulate better... In talking about my song Fishtown I meant to say more clearly that after living by the mouth of the Skagit river for more than 8000 years, the Skagit people didn't just randomly move away from there. Rather, beginning in the 1850s, like indigenous people elsewhere, they experienced a long onslaught when their lands, homes, physical health, and children were stolen from them by settlers and the government. The song is about the relationship that some other, later people had with the lands of the Skagit delta long after that, but I didn't intend to glide over the experiences and losses of the Skagit people in talking about it. Similarly, in talking about climate change and the song, Islands of Possible Things, I didn't mean to make light of the fact that real people are losing their real islands to the rising oceans... And: I did mean to thank everyone who helped me to record this album: Maury Smith, Scott Caldwell, Matthew Sanborn, Leora Weitzman, Ed Feeney, Kevin Clark, Jacoba Epstein, Bess Berg Jacques, Jahmes Finlayson, and Brian Daly of dna music labs. So thank you again, Mark, for acknowledging them on the radio program, and for allowing me to add their names here, as well. Gratitude to everyone. --Clare