Crain’s creativity is rooted in her culture

Ed Power talks to American songwriter Samantha Crain about her work

SAMANTHA CRAIN didn’t cheer for the United States at the World Cup. You get the impression the Oklahoma city native would not have been terribly upset had team USA suffered a Brazil-style existential meltdown at the tournament. Crain, an upcoming songwriter touring Ireland this week, is Choctaw, with conflicted ideas about what it means to be American. She could never figuratively wrap herself in the Stars and Stripes: it would feel like a humiliation and a betrayal.

“I don’t and wouldn’t [support the USA],” she says, smiling pensively. “One of the songs I’m writing at the moment is about that very subject.”

Crain is happy to be labelled an activist and openly angry about the appropriation of Native-American culture in the United States; the pop stars in headdresses or the refusal of the Washington Redskins to change their name. However, until now she has avoided overt politicking in her music, a soul-baring and intensely understated acoustic pop. She plans on changing that in the near future.

“I haven’t done much activism in my songs,” she says. “I love writing universal lyrics that people can put their own meaning to, are able to relate to in their own way. However, a political song tends to be about something very specific — it is hard to write it in a way where audiences can put their own meaning.”

Crain played the Other Voices festival in Dingle last year. During her stay, she was introduced to the Damien Dempsey ballad Choctaw Nation, which recounts a donation by her people to starving Irish during the Famine. She had not known the history of the Irish and Choctaw intertwined so closely.

Crain recently staged a high-profile protest against the band Pink Pony, whose frontwoman was photographed in a headdress. The singer is the daughter of the Governor of Oklahoma, the state with one of the highest Native American populations. Crain cites this as a case of privileged whites cherry-picking Native American heritage.

“There is an idea America is one big cultural buffet — that you can make yourself a plate of whatever is around. I disagree… mainly because the people pushing that argument are rich white people; they’ve been taking things off the plate for 500 years. If you want to pick up part of a culture, it is best to find somebody that knows a little bit about it and talk to them. After that, you can decide if it is appropriate for you to act in that way.”

Crain’s career is taking off and she spends much of the year on tour. She is at a point where it would be useful to relocate to New York or Los Angeles.

However, she is happy to stay in Oklahoma City. It’s a little remote, she says, cut off from the mainstream of popular culture. On the other hand, it’s cheap and her family is there.

In addition she says: “Oklahoma is out of the way just enough. If you want to keep to yourself, you can keep to yourself”.

- Samantha Crain plays Upstairs at Whelan’s Dublin tonight.