Episode Transcript
Episode 42: Keep the Little Flame Alive
Guest: Carsie Blanton
[Song: Little Flame]
Cotton field, silver mine, Johannesburg to Palestine, broken treaties, dreams deprived, we kept the little flame alive. Bobby Seal to Bobby Sands, a picket hell in frozen hands, prison cells, freedom rides, to keep a little flame alive. A hundred years, a hundred more, a hundred more, we throw our weight, throw our weight against the door, against the door, and even if we don't survive, we keep that little flame alive, we keep that little flame alive. Ford the river cross the sea, a slave, a rat, a refugee
Matthew Remski: So the lead vocal there is Carsie Blanton. It's September 22nd of last year and she's got a group of comrades on board with her on their Global Sumud Flotilla boat. You can hear the waves chopping at the bow. And I remember when I first heard this, it immediately made me well up because this is a familiar but also new voice in a familiar but a new format, recapitulating several hundred years of heritage that feels so distant so much of the time.
And they're out there singing it on the sea.
And the thing that I noticed first was this paradox of the new and the old that every socialist has to carry like a thorny rose. You have your lessons, you have your suffering, you have your stories of resilience. And you also know that conditions are always changing.
You don't know what's coming as the sea winds chase you towards the coast of Palestine.
And then I looked into Carsie's background and I saw that she grew up unschooled in rural Virginia and taught herself to read. And this was very interesting to me as the parent of a non-schooled autistic kid who also taught himself to read and is also developing a radical perspective on the world.
And then I found that her music life was triggered by a stack of jazz records that she got from her grandfather. And then it was accelerated by the slow collapse of a music industry.
And together these things incubated her politics.
So I knew I wanted to ask her about how unstructured freedom — from schooling, from the music industry, from institutional religion — became the soil for political and artistic radicalization, and whether that freedom can be transmitted to people who have never had it, have never felt it, through song, through friendship, through the example of direct action.
And I also wanted to understand her theory of influence, because the question of what the artist is in late capitalism is very close to my own dilemma, my own story, as somebody who started out by writing novels and books of poetry. And now I've moved on to this other thing. Maybe you share some of this, too.
How do we actually communicate? And what is the point? What are we trying to do? What it comes down to for Carsie is that, following on Nina Simone, she believes the artist's job is not to make commodities, but to reflect the times honestly and to point out a direction.
And songs are like an ancient technology for the collective feeling that points in that direction. And they are way older than capitalism. And according to her, the best ones arrive from the Zeitgeist and they choose their writers.
And those writers do best to remember that they're channels and not figureheads. And of course, that's getting harder in a parasocial age. So here's my conversation with Carsie Blanton, where we get into all of that and a lot more.
Matthew Remski: Carsie Blanton, welcome to Antifascist Dad.
Carsie Blanton: Hello. Thanks so much for having me.
Matthew Remski: I'm thrilled. In going through the bits and pieces of your story as they're, like, scattered across the interwebs, I keep coming back to you growing up unschooled as being at the heart of something that left you open to, I think, a bunch of probably revolutionary learning paths that most kids never hear about, let alone have access to. Is that fair to say?
Carsie Blanton: I think that is fair, yeah. And I appreciate the deep dive to find that out.
So, yeah, I was unschooled, which in my case meant basically no school curriculum and very little formal schooling and a lot of reading and a lot of projects and activities and a lot of, like, running around in the woods unsupervised, I would say, was the bulk of my education. And so I think I didn't get the benefit or burden of all the kind of programming around how society is supposed to be that a lot of people get when they go through the school system.
Matthew Remski: Did you read sort of on your own? Did you figure out the symbols without any help? Did you have some sort of guidance? Because this is a little bit of a mystery to me because we have a kid in the house who basically taught himself.
Carsie Blanton: Oh, yeah.
So I'm the oldest of my mom's two children. My dad has other older kids, but so when I was growing up, I was my mom's first, and she was interested in the idea of not sending me to school. And then the way she tells it, part of what decided it for her was that I started reading really young, and she was like, okay, if she can read, she'll be fine.
And then even as I remember, I think I started reading at 4 or something, kind of like figured it out, but then didn't do it for a while. Then when I was about seven, I started really reading for pleasure, to entertain myself.
And I still do. Like, I still have to read for an hour before I can fall asleep. And so I think that interest in words and experience of the written word was important for my parents being willing to let me have this kind of unconventional education.
Matthew Remski: Right. And then you get a record shipment at the age of 13 from her grandfather, right? And it's a bunch of jazz records. So what blew your mind? And, like, you know, there's Nina Simone in there, there's Billie Holiday in there, there's Cole Porter, there's a bunch of other stuff. What happened to your brain during that period?
Carsie Blanton: Well, I really loved Billie Holiday from the first time I heard her, which I believe was the Ken Burns jazz series, was on TV when I was, like, 12, and we watched it together. And I remember being like, what is that sound? Like, the sound of Billie Holiday's voice was really captivating to me.
Having no context for it, I just loved the way that she sounded. And so I think my parents reported that to my grandpa, who was a guy who grew up in Chicago, had been, you know, was Jewish, and ended up hanging out on the south side a lot and going to jazz clubs. He used to go see Sidney Bechet play every Tuesday, he told me.
And so when he heard I had an interest in jazz, he sent me a stack of CDs, and Billie Holiday was sort of my first love.
And it was really a pure appreciation. It was a pure sensual appreciation of the sound of her voice at first. And then as I got more educated in that kind of music, I became more appreciative of, like, the context for it, both in society and politically and who the artists were and what their life stories were and all that. But that came much later.
Matthew Remski: Yeah, well, that was part of my question, was like, something is going on aesthetically, something is going on with the senses. And then there's this layer underneath of, oh, there's a political story being told, there's a history being contained. And then, I mean, that's Nina Simone's entire story. But it impresses upon you first just through the sound.
Carsie Blanton: Yeah, totally. And it was such a big experience to find out probably 15 years later. So, like, I was, you know, I was, like, a liberal for most of my life, was raised in a liberal household. And then as I became radicalized to the left, I remember finding out that Nina Simone was a revolutionary after already having listened to her for 15 years or whatever, and just being so thrilled. Like, wow, Nina was out there thinking about this stuff. She has that quote about, you know, all we ever talked about was Marx and Lenin and revolution. Real girls talk.
I remember finding that and being so excited.
Matthew Remski: Yeah. Did you have the feeling of, like, oh, I knew it. I knew it.
Carsie Blanton: Not really, no. I mean, maybe in some mystical way, in my heart of hearts, I knew it, but I don't think so. I mean, now it is like, I do feel like she's one of the people kind of on the path in the lineage that I'm trying to follow. And as a revolutionary artist, we are always looking for examples and mentors and people in history that we can kind of follow in their footsteps. So I feel very fortunate that I've been such a steadfast Nina Simone fan since I was 13 and that I get to remain one.
Matthew Remski: So, going back to Billie Holiday, I don't sing much anymore, but I did a lot as a kid. And I actually got a scholarship for, like, opera when I was 17, and I passed it up for English and Religious Studies because I didn't want to do the vocalise. It was opera. I didn't want to sing a bunch of German lieder that I wasn't interested in.
Looking back, though, I also don't really have any sense of what my own voice was or could have been, because I'm just singing my lungs out through high school. I'm imitating the tenors I thought were most compelling or coolest.
This is a long way of asking the question, like, you sing, and I think a lot of people have said they can hear the echo of Billie Holiday in your actual voice, but there's all kinds of other history and influences. And then this story of the records coming from your grandfather is so important. But you also just sound like you. And I'm wondering how that happens and what it feels like to go from really appreciating, sometimes echoing the things you love to becoming someone that others will, like, recognize as being unique. Like, what? There's a moment where you go, oh, that's me.
Carsie Blanton: I don't know that that process has been conscious for me.
And this is maybe not a very helpful answer, but this is the truth. So despite the fact that I love to read both fiction and nonfiction, and I write lyrics that are pretty direct and about specific stuff.
Matthew Remski: You definitely do.
Carsie Blanton: I love science, and I like trying to understand what's real and true, and I love that process.
And on the flip side of that, my experience of art has always felt very otherworldly to me. So I feel that there's another world where music comes from.
And that's been my experience since I was pretty young. And so I haven't consciously worked on, quote, unquote, finding my voice.
What I have done is played a lot of gigs and played with a lot of different people and played a lot of other people's songs and just logged thousands of hours of, like, being on a microphone and trying to make a sound.
So I think that process is probably the closest thing to, like, finding my voice.
But the way that I've changed and developed as an artist has really felt like an unconscious process to me. It feels like something that is happening to me as this person being kind of swept along on the tide of the Zeitgeist, in a way.
So, like, I'm always looking for what interests me. I'm looking for music that I like, but I've rarely felt like I really gotta figure out how to write a song that sounds like me. Like, that hasn't really been how I've approached my work. It feels more like something that comes to me.
Matthew Remski: Well, I've got some lines in some current songs that I'll ask you about that I think might sort of shed light on that, you know, being swept along or just coming to you in some way. So I'll get to that in a bit. But, like, moving forward in your life story, you moved to an artist's group house in Eugene, Oregon, at the age of 16, which must be like some huge growth leap. But also you're unschooled, and it sounds like somewhat feral, and so you're probably ready for it. Was that a political community as well?
Carsie Blanton: You know, I wish that I could say that it was, but it was like — so I would have moved there in, like, 2001, and it was sort of half hippie, half punk house, but in Oregon. And I don't know if there were — I'm sure there were political communities out there, but the one that I moved into was much more like personal growth, do drugs and play in bands together.
Matthew Remski: Right.
Carsie Blanton: And I remember encountering some politics. Like, we had a copy of the People's History of the United States. And I did read it, but it wasn't a big hot topic of conversation. The hot topics were like, who's sleeping with who? And when is our next gig? And, like, does anyone have 20 bucks? Because we need olive oil or whatever.
So I would say not really. Or at least it wasn't political in the way that I frame it now.
My political awareness came much later, although there were seeds of it, like the, you know, Howard Zinn was around, so it was like there were certain little breadcrumbs being dropped. But no, mostly when I moved out there, I wanted to get away from my parents and my small town in Virginia, and I wanted to be a musician and learn about music. And so that's really what I was focused on at that time.
Matthew Remski: And I also saw — I can't remember where I read this, but that it was a time in which you might have also had some sort of pop star ambitions for a while, maybe connected to not quite finding your space politically yet. What happened with those?
Carsie Blanton: Yeah, I mean, I think at that time, when I was a teenager, it was more like I was just goofing off and being in bands. And then a few years later, when I was 20, 21, was sort of the time that I felt like I had to buckle down and start thinking about what my job was going to be. So I didn't go to college.
I think I had done one year of formal education total at that point, still at this point as well. So I went to seventh grade and that was it.
But so I was kind of bouncing around Eugene in these different communities and doing gigs and also, like, I was a dog groomer and a barista and just having jobby jobs, you know. And then when I was about 21, I broke up with my boyfriend who was living in the group house and was kind of having an early, not even quarter life crisis, I hope, and decided to move to Philadelphia where my mom was living to try and launch a music career. And that was when my ambitions for, like, being the kind of musician that could get a record deal or a manager or a booking agent and have a career in music became my primary focus. And remained so for probably 10 years, where it was like I was really — it wasn't that I exactly was focused on being a, quote, unquote, pop star, but I was focused on having a sustainable career in music. And to me, that meant a certain kind of success in the industry, like recognizable success, and a certain kind of
Matthew Remski: economy, too, which during that same 10 years is falling apart, right?
Carsie Blanton: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Matthew Remski: And I think you've said in a couple of places that that was actually a blessing to see that, oh, the commercialization process that I've been told is actually my gateway into sort of sustainability is total garbage. And phew, I guess I don't have to do that.
Carsie Blanton: Absolutely. I think of it as a blessing now, but it was very frustrating at the time. I think I got my first manager at 21, and he was focused on trying to get me a record deal. And we spoke to three different A&R people who were ostensibly on the verge of offering me a record deal and then were let go because all the labels were folding and buying each other at that point.
Matthew Remski: I love that. I love that we were interested in a bunch of singers, but we had to buy each other first.
Carsie Blanton: Exactly. Yeah. So it was just —
Matthew Remski: We were a little bit distracted. Yeah.
Carsie Blanton: It was the perfect time to be radicalized as a member of the working class in the music industry, is how I think of it now. But at the time, I was just like, I'm broke. I don't understand how I will ever not be broke. And it was very frustrating.
And again, it took a long time to be able to fold that experience into a larger understanding of capitalism and what it means to be a working person.
Matthew Remski: I mean, an ideal time to be radicalized, because it's right in your face that everything that you are meant to do, the pathways towards being able to grab onto some sort of wage, are just bullshit. It's not true. And there's always somebody standing around the corner to pick your pocket or to, I don't know, fool you in some way. So is that what you're getting at?
Carsie Blanton: Yeah. And it, again, took me a long time to think of it this way, but how I think of it now is a lot of what used to be called the music — so, like, the mid-90s was probably the peak of the recording industry. So that was when there were billions of dollars flowing through record labels, booking agencies, you know, ticketing, people that offered ticketing at the time before Ticketmaster. Right. So there were all these different little hubs of, you know, middlemen who were essentially skimming off some of the money that recording artists were making in the process of selling those songs.
And then through the Internet, all of those things got demonetized kind of one at a time. And now we're in a state where some of the vestiges of that dead industry still exist. So, like, there are still record labels, but I think their model has become, like, you have to have, like, a Beyonce or a Taylor Swift for there to be enough extra money that you can afford to employ all of those people who work at that record label. And so the sort of middle class has dropped out the way it has in most industries.
And now we're left with these sort of vestigial ideas of, like, what a manager is, what a record label is, like, what you're supposed to do, quote, unquote, to have a career in music. What's actually happening is people like me who make songs, put them directly on the Internet, and we hope we get enough followers that we can sell some tickets to our show. Or have a Patreon — new Patreon supporter. Those are the two sources of income that are left for the most part.
Matthew Remski: Right. And additionally, that the tour or the set of gigs has a political organizing function to it. Like, it's not — you're not even just selling the music anymore. But — and I'm not saying this is a good condition because, of course, you've been stripped of so many ways of actually making money. But I think maybe it also encouraged you to think of the gig as not just a commodity, but as a gathering.
Carsie Blanton: Yeah, for sure. I often say now it's like when I was coming up in music, the bribes were getting a lot worse, and now the bribes are terrible. So, like, the bribe to not talk about Palestine, for example, is zero dollars, if we're honest. Like, for someone in my position, there's no extra money to be had by not talking about Palestine. And of course, that's, you know, it was scarier a couple years ago. Now it's a very popular position. But the same thing will be true for whatever the next thing is. Like, okay, there's a new red scare coming up. So we're not supposed to talk about communism. Well, nobody's really paying me enough to not talk about communism.
So I think for a lot of people in the music industry, there's this process of self-censorship where they're still imagining that there's a board of record label executives who's going to give them some money if they don't say what's actually going on politically. And that's just not the case anymore. But it's sort of like there's a lag time where people haven't caught up to the fact that there's no bribe. So it's actually just us not saying what we think because we're scared.
Matthew Remski: Yeah. So there's the cop in the head. And I wonder if there's an analogy or a symmetry there to the, let's say, the progressive or the DSA type political organizer who is imagining — well, actually I think DSA is breaking through here a little bit. But let's say the progressive Democrat organizer who's imagining the sort of centrist Middle America consumer of their political program, who they have to please because that's the only reason to self-censor. If you are now in a digital environment where you're actually just trying to find your own followers, there's no reason to imagine some sort of gray middle that's not going to accept you because that's not who you're following, that's not who you're pursuing.
Carsie Blanton: I also think I have a fundamentally different understanding now of the role of the artist in society. And again, it's something that Nina Simone and I agree on.
Nina said the role of the artist is to reflect the times.
And that's something that I have thought more and more deeply about as the times have gotten weirder.
And now I really take that very seriously. So I consider my role as an artist to be like, I'm out here on the edge saying what I see, even if it's really far from the popular position. I'm saying what I see in the times, but also I'm trying to get us to move somewhere. So I'm trying to point a direction rather than just saying what is.
And I think that a lot of artists actually can feel that. They can feel that as part of their purpose, but it is certainly not how our society has framed our purpose.
So there's this sort of — I'm seeing this sort of radicalization and awakening process among a lot of musicians right now where they're starting to be like, wait, if my job isn't to make commodities to sell to a record label, then what is my job? And I think part of our job, which a lot of people are becoming conscious of, is to try to pull the society in a direction. And if you're in the center of it, you're not pulling anywhere. So I think a lot of people are finding themselves pulling to the left right now.
Matthew Remski: Okay, well, let's get into how you do that, how you pull and what helps you pull. Has the unschooling self-guided learning and reading just continued as you've gone along? That's been a standard, like a continual feature.
Carsie Blanton: It has. And as I've gotten more interested in political theory, I've had the benefit of a lot of great free education that's out there. I live in New Jersey, so I go to the People's Forum a lot in New York, and they have these incredible free classes on, on, you know, Marx or let's talk about the Cuban Revolution or let's talk about all revolutions and just look at them from a bird's eye perspective, whatever. They've got really great education. So I would say I'm actually getting more formalized education than I used to in that I go to classes, but I also still do a lot of my studying on my own. And I just, I love to be alone with a book still. And so, yeah, a lot of my political theory has come from books, but some of it also now from organizing in the real world.
Matthew Remski: Right, okay, so we'll get to that. But there's one specific sort of book-song connection that I think you've made, which is that reading Mark Fisher inspired the song After the Revolution, which is — I mean, I'm gonna link to everything, but there's just so much summed up in that song about yearning towards the imaginary future. After the revolution, you'll be a better husband, I'll be a better wife. Are there other book-song combos in your catalog like that?
Carsie Blanton: I'm sure there are. And I read this question, I meant to write some down, but I didn't do my homework. Okay. Yes, I would say the one that comes to mind is Little Flame, which is a song that has a lot of different historical figures and moments in it. That song came to me very fast — like, the chorus was written very fast, and the form of the song was written very, very fast. But then each verse is just a list of names and places, and those I workshopped very carefully and for a long time, because it felt important to me to put together certain themes.
Like, for example, there's a line that's Ho, Guevara, Connolly. And I remember texting my brother, like, I need revolutionaries who won their revolution. And I'm gonna need two that are three syllables. So we're, like, looking through. Yeah. So, like, that song is put together in a pretty careful way, actually, where I really wanted each list to have a thematic connection and also to be referring to something that I felt I could stand behind. Not necessarily as, like, this is a hero, but, like, this is someone who is keeping the little flame alive, which to me is about hope and also revolution and sort of the little flame of believing in a future that's better for humanity. So everybody who shows up in that song was, to me, like, thematically connected. And it did take some — I had to have some references to be able to pull it off. And I also have a little bit of a mystical theory about songs.
Matthew Remski: What's that?
Carsie Blanton: Which is that they — I'm not the only one who thinks this. Actually, a lot of people have come to this conclusion that songs are roaming the earth free of songwriters, and then when they want to be born, they come and find a songwriter. So I know Tom Waits has said this also. Like, Elizabeth Gilbert has said this about books. That feels very true to me. Not of every song, but of the really good ones. Like, they're these free-living beings who are looking for someone to write them. And that song really felt that way. Like, the song came to me from the other world and was like, I want to be written. And I just remember thinking, I'm so glad you chose me, because I can, like, really find the right characters for you. I was like, if you had gone to someone else — not gonna name any names — they might have done a sloppier job with the history, you know. But I read a lot of books.
Matthew Remski: You know, I started my writing career in poetry and novels. And I don't know, I think I've had that impression of, oh, something has come to me. Usually what I can recall is while I was writing novels, as I was falling asleep, the characters that I was working with would sort of be in the liminal space. They would be in the twilight. And I would watch them interact, or they would interact with me, or I'd ask them what they wanted.
So there was kind of some sort of internal dialogue that was coming to me.
But by and large, like, my creative experience, I think, could benefit from this mythology a little bit, because I spent a lot of time with the anxiety of emptiness. And like, well, what do I need to do? What do I need to do? How should I fill this space right now? And I think that is an anxiety that's exacerbated by the era of content creation, where it's like you've got this vast empty space that somehow you're supposed to fill. But I mean, I really like this idea of picking things up or having them choose you. But does that also create the anxiety of, like, oh, well, nobody's knocking on my door right now. Like, am I not interesting?
Carsie Blanton: I think it has, for me, at different parts of my life, so it could come back. But I will say, since I have become so engaged in political work, I think my sort of theories about the mystical nature of art have become enriched by thinking about the Zeitgeist, which we call it the Time Ghost, because that's like the German translation of Zeitgeist is Time Ghost. So I'm like, okay, the Time Ghost is here.
I'm out here trying to work with the Time Ghost, which is how it feels to me to do politics. Like, I'm not the type of organizer who's working on the same thing all the time. I'm the type of organizer who's trying to find a political intervention that will work in this moment. And that's very zeitgeisty. You really have to be paying attention to the Time Ghost. So I'm always, like, looking at the Time Ghost. How am I going to intervene politically? And I think that process is also bringing me closer to the songs, because in a way that also comes from the Zeitgeist. So it's like I feel less individually responsible all the time and more like my responsibility is to be engaged with the times and be engaged with the political process and be engaged with the musical process and the creative process. And by being engaged, I'm putting myself open to these songs that are, like, out there that might come in.
Matthew Remski: I'm going to say that you probably have figured out some sort of balance or line to walk between taking in Time Ghost stuff, which can be incredibly exhausting and claustrophobic, and allowing yourself to have the time or the openness to see how you're actually responding. Is that something that you've had to figure out? Because this is a plague on me and my work, where I have to sort of consciously disengage from the fragmentary nature of the information landscape constantly to figure out who I actually am or what my life is.
Carsie Blanton: Yeah, well, for sure, it's a struggle, and I guess I'll make two points about it. One is, I don't have Wi-Fi in my house where I live.
Matthew Remski: Wow.
Carsie Blanton: So I live in a cabin in the woods where I can't get on the Internet. And that is what it took for me to be able to disengage from trying to see what's happening in the media all the time.
So I can go get the Internet, but I have to drive somewhere. And that's how big of a boundary I needed to wean myself off of the Internet. So, yes, I relate to that feeling.
And at the same time, that was partly a songwriting strategy, because as a writer, I find I really need to let my mind relax and my attention span return and to even get a little bit bored before I can begin the process of writing a song. So it's important to me that I put myself in situations where I'm bored and my smartphone doesn't work or I'm not going to be writing songs. I don't know that that's true for everybody, but that's been my strategy.
Matthew Remski: I really appreciate that you brought up boredom. I think it's underrated. I think it's crucial. I don't know if you know Adam Phillips, but he's a British psychoanalyst, and he talks about how boredom is the desire to have a desire, and to actually wait with that is a very good thing.
Carsie Blanton: It's hard these days, but, yeah, it's still — I think it does something to our brains that sort of nothing else can achieve. Being bored and having nothing to do is actually part of our thinking process, even though it's, like, an uncomfortable part.
And then the one other thing I wanted to add about kind of this balance in life is that I know it feels like our phones are where the Zeitgeist is and where we're learning about society, but I think actually it's happening in real life still.
So as much as possible, I try to do my political work in real life so that I can be more related to what is happening in the society that is concrete and real and not only rely on the society that I'm getting from my algorithm, because they're not the same.
Matthew Remski: Yeah. I mean, an incredible mixture of tasks, right? Because we just finished this conversation about you relying upon direct access to your audience through the Internet or funding your actual life to make your actual living. And then it's something that you have to hide away from in the cabin at the same time. Jesus. Like, we're so split in this particular world.
Carsie Blanton: Absolutely. Yeah. And the dance of, like, I have to, quote, unquote, make content to put on the Internet so that people know that I have a show and they buy the tickets to the show so that I can get paid to go to the town and play the show.
And at the same time, like, the content-making aspect, I don't really consider an important part of my work as a creative person or as a person. Like, it's actually the worst part.
Matthew Remski: Yeah.
Carsie Blanton: So it feels like that's the part of my job that feels the most, like, work, is — okay, I gotta make some videos, put on the Internet so we can sell some tickets. But it's, like, it's not fun. It's not creatively enriching. It's not good for my soul. I think we can admit that.
Matthew Remski: Okay, so one thing before we get to how I first discovered your music through the Global Sumud Flotilla — I want to end with that. But, you know, speaking of the sort of breadth of creative projects, I have to ask you about this collaboration you're doing with Joe Plowman and the Burning Hell, because it really is like Sesame Street for revolutionaries, but also by Brecht. And it seems that you are really suited for kids media in some kind of retro way that I bet will also just stop the scroll for a lot of people.
Carsie Blanton: Cool.
Matthew Remski: You were unschooled, but did you take care of kids? Did you give music lessons? Like, how — because, you know, you go from, what is it? Ugly Nasty Commie Bitch. Is that the song?
Carsie Blanton: Ugly Nasty to —
Matthew Remski: You could do kids media and you could do that on the same channel. And I don't know, I don't know who else is able to do that, but I think it tells me that you have some sort of educational or teacherly background. Is that true?
Carsie Blanton: Not really, actually, no. I just like play and I like humor and I like to be having fun while I'm making music. And so I think, like, my show is very playful and there's a lot of jokes and there's a lot of, like, almost vaudeville sensibility.
And so, yeah, I've heard that before, that, like, people's kids watch all my videos, but I don't have a background with kids other than hanging out with my nieces and nephews and younger siblings and stuff.
But, yeah, I think for me, it's like the inroad there has to do with the more hardcore I get politically, the more my urge to make jokes and be playful is, like, a useful element of my creative process. The funnier you can make something, the more hardcore you can make the same thing. And people — it's, like, palatable to people.
Matthew Remski: Like a lot of people, I first heard your voice singing Little Flame on the deck of the boat that you were on within the Global Sumud Flotilla.
And first of all, you've just described how it was a very meticulous composition process and there's a lot of names to remember, so maybe this takes the edge off a little bit. But I'm just wondering how you get through that song without crying, or any of these songs that are very Time Ghosty, and is there a lot of crying at the shows?
Carsie Blanton: Oh, man. Okay, I'm gonna answer that. And then I want to do a throwback and talk about collaboration too, with the last question. But when I have had a really big life experience and I have a song about it, I usually go through a period where it's difficult to sing that song. And so when I got back from the flotilla, I had a few months with no gigs. And then the first month of gigs were quite emotional. And I think it was true for the crowd as well. So it was like — and the band. So we had all really just been through something. My band was quite — you know, it was crazy that I was disappeared for a few days. And that was very hard on my family and my band. It also meant that our whole season of touring was canceled. And so, like, when we got back together as a band to play these songs, we were coming from a pretty emotionally vulnerable place.
And I would say the two songs that were the most difficult to get through on that tour in February were Little Flame, which I had sung on the boat, of course, and sort of went viral online, and then the song Hello Comrade, which I wrote when I got out of prison.
And for a while, we were starting every show with Hello Comrade and ending every show with Little Flame. And that was really just a strategy so that I could get through Hello Comrade and then do the rest of the show, and then if I start crying again on Little Flame, I'm good.
So. Yeah.
Matthew Remski: What about encores, though? Was that, like — no. Okay. No encores for Carsie.
Carsie Blanton: I think we were doing Little Flame as our last encore, actually, like, literally as the end of the show. Yeah.
Now I feel a little more, you know, back to baseline, so I could get through those songs without crying. But, yeah, it's true. It's — you know, especially songs like Hello Comrade, I wrote that very fast. And I wrote it the week I got home from prison. And I remember having to sing it, like, 10 times before I could get through it enough to make a video. And I really wanted to put it online for my comrades who had just gotten back from the flotilla. So I remember being in my house all day trying to get through the song without crying. I finally got one take, you know. So, yeah, it's a struggle. I'm not gonna pretend it's not.
But I guess as I integrate the songs more and integrate those experiences more, then I'm able to get through the song in a less personalized way, which is my preference. Like, I like to be able to perform a song where people know that I wrote it and they know that I wrote it out of a real experience, but it's not so raw that the audience has to feel like they're giving me therapy.
Matthew Remski: Or that you are the center of the movement or that — I think I do feel that from watching some of the live gigs, is that you are — I haven't been to one. But, like, it does feel as though you're facilitating something, right?
Carsie Blanton: Like, yeah.
Matthew Remski: And there's something communist about that, right? Like, there's no — because we are embedded in a culture of, you know, sort of singular personalities and, you know, charisma and so on. And so. Yeah. Is that something that you have to think about, like, in a general sense, and as people may be attached to you, is that something you have to navigate?
Carsie Blanton: Yeah, and more and more. And it's a little bit of a struggle, to be honest. I feel — you know, even though I wanted to be famous as a young person, I'm finding that the way that I've become semi-famous on the Internet, you know, which is by, like, writing these songs about the revolution and then, like, doing these big, scary, direct actions, has created this sense where, like, people feel so politically hopeless right now, and there's so much cynicism, that there's a lot of this sense of people pouring all of their hope into me as an individual.
Matthew Remski: Oh, no. Jesus Christ. That's so bad.
Carsie Blanton: It's so — I mean, it's — yeah, it sucks.
Matthew Remski: Yeah.
Carsie Blanton: And I also see how it's happening, because people, you know, in our society, everything is special individuals, and nothing is about the collective. So I think the phase of my creative work that I'm in now, I'm always looking to depersonalize the work and make it about more people and make it about a community and make it about solidarity. And so part of that process has been collaborating a lot more. So you mentioned — my latest album is a collaborative album with another band called the Burning Hell. And Joe Plowman has been my collaborator for the last 16 years. He's my bass player in my band. So we've been working together for quite a long time. And we were on a gig in Canada, and we met this other band, the Burning Hell, and we just really had, like, a very zeitgeisty experience of falling in love with each other's work. So we've been working together quite a lot and writing all these songs that feel like neither of us would have written them alone. And so it's this sort of —
Matthew Remski: They're very weird. They are odd.
Carsie Blanton: Yeah, they're very odd.
Matthew Remski: Yeah. I just — the Canadian flag song just dropped yesterday on Canada Day, and it was very, very interesting. And I've got to listen to it about six more times to figure out what's going on and to see how we can send it to Carney and so on.
Carsie Blanton: Yeah, no, it's really been a weird experience. Very spooky, very zeitgeisty to meet those guys. They were just doing a really similar thing in the way they're writing and what they're writing about. And so meeting them felt like we got caught up in this kind of whirlpool together. And all these songs flew out really fast that none of us feels responsible for. Like, it was sort of like we opened a wormhole.
And so that experience has been really great for this process that I'm in of trying to depersonalize the work and make it more about the movement and more about a collective process. Like, I'm literally making most of my work as a collective process right now. So it's allowing me to depersonalize it so I don't feel so responsible for each song. And that's been really — that feels really psychologically like a relief to me.
But then at the same time I'm trying to make the shows — you know, there's always political groups tabling at the shows, there's always other artists on the shows. I try to give the band a lot of time to, like, show that they're also people and musicians and geniuses and they should be celebrated. And also the thing we're doing together as four people should be celebrated, because it's not me doing it, right? So I think on the show now, I'm always looking for opportunities to be like, hey, everybody, thanks for coming to the show. Now let's talk about what we can do together.
Matthew Remski: Right, right.
Carsie Blanton: But it is a little tough. And I do find that that energy of, like, people feeling so desperate for hope and then finding it in me as a person is actually terrifying.
So there has been — it's been a process of trying to, in a way, get away from that energy, which results in, like, I don't go out in the crowd anymore. I don't go to the merch table, I don't sign people's stuff. I know people feel disappointed about that, but it feels like it's important for my psychology that I'm protected from that feeling of desperation and, like, political desperation that's being pointed at me.
So, yeah, it is a struggle.
Matthew Remski: Back to Hello Comrade and the flotilla experience. So the IDF could have killed you? Yeah, right. Like, they could have sunk your boats. They could have hidden the wreckage. They obviously don't care about anything. Was that totally clear to everyone who signed up? And is that part of what that song holds?
Carsie Blanton: It was complicated.
I would answer that two ways. So as a soft-hearted poet, which I am, I felt pretty like my life was being threatened. I felt pretty scared a lot of the time. I felt like, yeah, we might all die. We had a lot of conversations on the boat about how we might all die. I knew how all my comrades on the boat felt about that. A lot of people had, like, left home and said goodbye to their mothers, like, they might not come back. So there was a sense of that for sure. An emotional sense of threat.
And at the same time, I am a Marxist, which means that myself and my comrades do a specific process to try and figure out what the realistic threat level is.
And we had done that before I left, and I met some other Marxists on the flotilla who I would call when I wasn't sure what was happening. So, like, the day after we were drone-struck, I remember calling a comrade and being like, let's do a little dialectical materialism. What do we think is actually going on for the IDF? What do we think is going on for Netanyahu? What do we think Trump thinks right now? What do we think the US Empire thinks it can get away with? What do we think Germany thinks? What do we think Britain thinks? Like, so we're sort of trying to analyze from a somewhat objective political standpoint, what is the best material choice for Israel.
And I felt, and the other people I spoke to in that way all felt, that it would be a poor choice materially for Israel to blow up the flotilla, because we had a lot of international attention, we had a lot of Americans. Like, there were several reasons that it was like, this would be a bad choice. Doesn't mean they won't do it. But I think the risk level from that perspective was a lot lower than it felt like on the boat some days.
Matthew Remski: That's so interesting, because, I mean, okay, so you're going to use dialectical materialism to really assess the potential for this organization to make an insane choice or not. And that's an amazing use of the method, actually, because it is trying to say, well, insanity aside, what seems to make sense for capital and for power as it's organized right now is X. Yeah, so that's pretty interesting.
Carsie Blanton: Yeah. And I also, you know, rhetorically, we talk about how the IDF is insane, but materially they're not insane. They're behaving practically. They can get away with torturing and murdering Palestinians because they've been getting away with it this whole time.
Matthew Remski: And so, yeah, it's not insane, actually.
Carsie Blanton: So until they stop getting away with it, we don't have to assume that they're irrational, because they're actually behaving rationally. They're behaving very cruelly. And cruelty isn't rational. But like the willingness to exterminate a whole population if it doesn't affect your economy or your position in the world — there's plenty of rational reasons to do that.
So I think my tendency as a Marxist is to try and, you know, think like a state and try to take into account all of the complex forces. And of course, you can't always do it perfectly, but I think it's always worth trying. And like, even the decision to go on the flotilla — once I realized I had that opportunity, in my heart I felt I really want to do this. But in my head, I had a series of conversations that were essentially, let's do dialectics on this and see if we think this is the right time for this political intervention. Do we think it could work? What do we think the results could be? How likely do we think it is that we're all going to get killed? And if we do get killed, is that going to actually end the occupation of Palestine, or is that going to be a bunch more martyrs for no reason? Right. So I think when you're involved in political action, those are the conversations you should be having with your comrades. And I do try to do that now. That's not what I'm doing when I'm writing a song, which is also part of my political intervention. So I think all the methods have a place.
Matthew Remski: But as you collaborate more, some of that's happening, some of that crossover is happening.
Carsie Blanton: Oh, yeah, it's true. And actually, that's something I love about the Burning Hell, is that we do have those kind of conversations. We usually will start writing a song because it's funny, but then we'll often stop and be like, you know, is this the right time to be saying this? Or, like, how do you think people will interpret this the way we mean it? Or do you think they'll interpret it this other way? And it's important to all of us that we're making a clear political statement, even if it includes humor and includes satire and includes all this other stuff.
Matthew Remski: This brings me to — I wanted to ask about whether this process also governs how you choose to do a line in the — is it the Mangione Tango? Is it — what is it called?
Carsie Blanton: It's called Tango Luigi.
Matthew Remski: Tango Luigi. So there's — opens with a punchline of, you know, commuters see a psychopathic killer lying dead on the ground, and you are probably making the most intense provocation of liberal sensibilities with regard to violent direct action that you could. And it's an amazing line, and it takes my breath away every time. And I'm thinking, first of all, does this endanger you? Second of all, did you work out sort of the timing of how you were going to let that fly? Did you go through some sort of dialecticism about that line as well and how you were gonna publish it?
Carsie Blanton: I wish I could say that I really did, but not really. No.
And it's a little bit more intuitive. So I think for me, stuff like releasing a song feels like I'm definitely trying to check in on the Zeitgeist and see if I think I can get away with something. And that's based on where the Zeitgeist is. So that song — and there's another song on the Everything Is Great album that says Luigi was right. My mom hates both of those for the reasons that you're bringing up.
But I think what I was experiencing as a writer is I was trying to reflect a very widespread sentiment.
Matthew Remski: Yeah.
Carsie Blanton: Which was like — I think the most interesting thing about the Luigi Mangione event was how people reacted to it across the political spectrum, for sure. So he basically is a folk hero or a working-class hero who just showed up, did a thing. And the way that he did that thing and the reasons he gave for doing it resonated with people in a way that I've never seen anything in my lifetime. That was a political resonance that transcended the culture wars and transcended Democrat-Republican politics. And it was just about being in the working class and having this rage toward the ruling class. And it was sort of like that action distilled it in a way that was so poetic and symbolic that it's sort of irresistible as a songwriter.
Matthew Remski: Right.
Carsie Blanton: Because I can't really write that into a song like — when you say Luigi Mangione, you're invoking this spirit that people know what you mean.
Matthew Remski: Right.
Carsie Blanton: And so — so I don't know. Is it dangerous to say that? Probably, like, not right now. Apparently. It's all very — there's so many different forces at play in what you can get away with saying and when and how people interpret it. And so I was sort of making an intuitive bet that people were going to interpret it the way I meant it, which I think largely has been the case.
And the way I meant it is to say, you know, no war but class war.
This guy hit this button that everybody really related to, and that's what it meant to them. So I think making him a folk character in a folk song is sort of, like, appropriate.
Matthew Remski: Well, and it goes back to the function that you quoted Nina Simone as attributing to art, which is like, you've got to hold up a mirror to what is happening. And if there is this incredible groundswell of, oh, yeah, actually, this is how I feel about social murder, and this is how I feel about the endless sort of parade of stories in my family and the families of my neighbors, of medical debt and neglect and early deaths. Yeah. Then how else would you capture that? Or, like, why would you leave that out of the sort of artistic record?
Carsie Blanton: Yeah, exactly. And I think as a person who enjoys reading theory, concepts like social murder are important to me intellectually, and I relate to them. But I also, as an artist, I consider it my job to try and translate those ideas into folk knowledge. And that's what folk songs are for.
So to me, it's like part of my responsibility is to reflect the times, and also to do that in a way that the times themselves can understand.
And so I do think it puts me in a slightly vulnerable position. And, like, I've studied the Red Scare quite a bit. I think we're probably going into one now with, like, the Minnesota 15 and the Prairieland people. They're, like — they're trying some shit that they've tried before, and 100%, it's not going to be over for a while, in my opinion. So I think, like, yeah, I probably am vulnerable to certain kinds of state repression. It's possible that I'm vulnerable to, like, vigilante justice. But I do — I take that responsibility really seriously. As Nina Simone said, to reflect the times. And so I think if doing that puts me in a vulnerable position, that's part of the risk I take. And the benefit I get is I get to feel this beautiful sense of being on the wave of the Zeitgeist and being held in all this solidarity and having, like, thousands of people hoping to have a song, and then I'm able to sing it sometimes.
So I think it's like, the risk to me feels appropriate. And, yeah, some of the songs are riskier than others.
Matthew Remski: I guess you probably couldn't do the reflecting job if you weren't at the same time vulnerable. Right.
Carsie Blanton: I don't think you can do it well. I would say the people I see trying to be in this position who aren't willing to take a lot of risk, just aren't doing that good of a job.
Matthew Remski: I've got one last question, which is that you have obviously not had a typical life, and so it might be hard to imagine giving advice to normie kids. But let's just say that you were invited to do a public school performance for grade 9 kids in Kansas or wherever, with, you know, less intellectual and scheduling freedom than you had when you were young. What advice would you give them about life, about helping each other, about living?
Carsie Blanton: I think it has to do with the transience of the way society is set up. Like, I would want to try to impart to younger people that the way you see things operating is just an accident of when you were born and where you were born.
And societies change all the time and they change dramatically.
And people's relationships to society change all the time. And therefore, you can really make it up. You can really make everything up. Everything's already made up, and now you get to make up your life.
And you also get to have some influence on how the society works around you, even though it's hard to see sometimes. So I guess I just encourage a sense of, like, creativity and playfulness in all things and especially in how we organize our lives and our societies.
Matthew Remski: Carsie Blanton, thank you so much for taking the time. I hope you like — I think in Hello Comrade, you say, you know, I'm sleeping really hard. And so I hope, like, as you continue to journey and tour, that you get some good hard sleeps in still. And maybe, maybe I'll get to come to your show in Toronto in September.
Carsie Blanton: That would be great.
Matthew Remski: Yeah. And I can meet you there. And yeah, keep safe.
Carsie Blanton: All right. Yeah, please let me know. I'll put you on the guest list in Toronto. Thanks for having me.
Matthew Remski: Thank you.
[Song: Hello Comrade]
Hello, comrade. Did you make it home alive? You remember how we said we would laugh if we survived? I ain't laughing yet, just sleeping pretty hard. You remember how you looked at me and yelled across the yard? A hundred years and I cried just like a kid. Well, I know we didn't beat them, but I'm proud of what we did. Hello, comrade. Are you back at work today? Guess it's true what they've been telling us, terrorism doesn't pay. How they hate us here, back in the home of the brave, but we know they'll celebrate us when we're safe in our grave. So come on by the house and we will talk about it all. Billionaire in office while a thousand lawyers break the law. President's denying, you won't hear it on the news, but the writing's on the prison walls, all the fascists bound to lose. Hello, comrade.
Matthew Remski: So that's a wrap for this first almost year of Antifascist Dad Podcast. Started back on 10-1, 80 episodes. And it's time to take a break from a bunch of things for a few family trips. Spending a little bit more time in the garden. And also spurred on by Carsie talking about living without Wi-Fi, spending more time with offline writing practice as I work out the basics for a new book on antifascist spirituality, which sounds a little bit grandiose, but it's really about describing the cultural and psychological resources I think we'll increasingly have to turn to as we keep the little flame alive.
Now for Patreons, the bonus episode this week is an excerpt from the audiobook of Antifascist Dad. I'm going to run chapter eight for you. It's called Friendship is Not Easy. And I'm putting it out there because it parallels some of Carsie's story. But also carries my take on what she does so well in her gig life, her touring life, which is to nurture a sense of friendship and mutual encouragement.
I also am an introvert by nature or sometimes by circumstance, depending upon the season of life.
And I've built a kind of solitary life around writing. But I've come to believe that real friendship, what Aristotle calls friendships of virtue, is inseparable from antifascist politics. So I spend a lot of time thinking about that and working on that and nurturing those relationships in my life. The chapter draws on my years in high-demand religious groups to show how cults and fascism hijack our natural hunger for connection through things like love bombing, charismatic leadership, and loyalty structures that replace genuine friendship with a kind of conditional belonging. MLMs do the same thing, by the way, in a capitalist register.
And against all that I offer D.W. Winnicott's incommunicado core, or the notion of that private self that no system can colonize and that we are always in possession of. And also David Graeber's everyday communism, the unspoken mutual aid that already flows between us in families, neighborhoods, and during disasters.
Real friendship that's horizontal and unconditional is already a form of non-capitalist life.
So I'll see you all on Patreon, or I'll see you back here on September 9th. Take care of each other till then.
