Thank you so much to Monika Wiacek for her wonderful interview with me about my new album Providence. The interview Polish Waves on Cambridge 105 Radio – here is the listening link and the interview transcript
Listen to the show here : https://www.mixcloud.com/polishwaveskatycarrprovidence
or play here
Some extra info from the organisers “I have a strong feelings to this part of Polish history from 1918 to 1939 and the whole period of WWII. Music is a gift, something that always was giving a hope to the people – especially to the soldiers, who couldn’t come back to their country, to their home during the war” Katy Carr is a great British – Polish musician, known also as an ambassador of Polish history in the UK. Sama komponuje i pisze. Opowiada niesamowite historie o ludziach i ich przeżyciach. Miłośniczka stylu vintage, zakochana w Dwudziestoleciu Międzywojennym śpiewa niczym Hanka Ordonówna. Katy Carr– Brytyjska artystka o polskich korzeniach w rozmowie ze mną mówi o swoich inspiracjach muzycznych, nauce polskiego, ludziach jak Kazimierz Piechowski czy Witold Pilecki, których historii nie można zapomnieć. “Czuje się zobowiązana, by w taki sposób to wszystko powiedzieć. Piosenkarz ma taka moc ” – wyznaje. Oprócz tego Katy włącza się w akcje pomocy dla Hani Łączkowskiej Hania Króliczek https://www.facebook.com/providenceforhania, przekazując 30% z każdego sprzedanego albumu. Ja jestem zauroczona głosem Katy i jej wspaniałą osobowością. Zapraszam do posluchania audycji i do zakupu płyty oczywiscie https://py.pl/4ZfVlSCU7Hs
RADIO SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Monika Wiacek (MW) interviews Katy Carr (KC)
Polish waves on Cambridge 105 radio.
Monika Wiacek (MW)
Good afternoon, dear listeners. This is Polish waves of Cambridge 105 radio on Sunday 25th of October, 2020. My name is Monica Wiacek and I will be with you until six o’clock. As always, on Sunday we do spend this hour with you on Cambridge 105 radio, and are excited today because I’m joined by a beautiful artist fantastic woman, Katy Carr who is British singer songwriter, but not only British because her heart is always with Poland. She’s got Polish roots and she speaks Polish as well as you can hear in our Polish part of the interview in the second half of the show. So, she is very well known from her music which is mostly inspired by the World War Two and the history of people. Hello Katy How are you?
Katy Carr (KC)
Hello everybody, I’m just so excited to be here with you, Monika today, and to share some music and some things, thinking and and speak with you all today I’m so excited.
MW :
Last time we talked it was nearly two and a half years ago. And during your concert in Peterborough when it was a very important event, Polish day organised by Daniel Guz, and I remember we had a lovely time, and I interviewed you then, and hopefully when everything is back to normality we can have another event, and hopefully not even one but more concerts from you in here. I loved the performance
KC :
and I love meeting everybody it was just such an honour for me to come up too Peterborough and to play and perform my music. I really had a wonderful time and Monika you did such a beautiful interview. So, thank you.
MW :
Oh no, not at all it was our pleasure to have you there. And, you know, it’s really amazing that we can have such artists like you, especially for, you know, for the people who don’t know you yet, or just know that you actually speak Polish so well and using Polish music, and those beautiful themes from, you know, a 1930s. It’s a really beautiful time. And today, also, we are going to talk about what happened recently because you’ve been working on your album. This is the third part of trilogy. After two previous one. Paszport released in 2012 and Polonia in 2015.
KC :
This album is called Providence in Polish that’s Opatrzność , and actually forms the third in a series of albums that I’ve written about post Second World War experience. So, in 2012 I released Paszport which was my fourth studio album, inspired by those people who didn’t have a Polish passport pre and post. Second World War in Poland and Polonia was inspired by all the exile poles around the world and one of the efforts that they tried so hard to fight for an independent Poland. And this really is inspired by all the knowledge that I’ve gained being a British songwriter with Polish roots and also the people that I’ve met around the world of all nationalities, who understand what it feels like to have a nation where there isn’t. Freedom isn’t something that’s been readily available for many, many years. So my album Providence really pays tribute to all the people who fought so bravely during the Second World War, but only destined to fall into what was another reign of terror in Poland, which was the Cold War,
MW :
So please tell us more what kind of songs we will hear. How many tracks, is there, and did you have a special inspiration for that third part of your trilogy.
KC :
There’s 10 tracks on this album and it was inspired really from the passing of Polish mother, Krystyna, she passed away two years ago and a reaction about how to walk on this planet without my Polish mother on the planet. I dedicate myself to my mother and everything she did to sacrifice her life so that I can be born in Great Britain in freedom. So for me the idea of freedom is very very important, and my mother had to make huge sacrifices to leave the country that she loved in the middle of the Cold War, so that I can be born in safety.
MW :
So yes, we know that you were born here in England in Nottingham and then you moved to Poland where you spent a bit of your childhood until you were five right right?
KC : that’s correct because my father was actually working in a town called Wroclawek in Poland and that’s how he met my mother. My mother came from Bielsko Biala which is a small town in the southern area of Poland near the Beskidy mountains
MW :
So, that was a time that you’ve learned Polish as a child, a little child. But then, but then when you move to the UK that wasn’t your first language obviously English became your first language, but later on you discovered Polish again
KC :
Well, I spoke Polish until about five years old to my grandmother and my mother. But it was a child, language for me I didn’t really explore it to any great detail. I was able to understand what my grandmother was singing or speaking and I could, I could understand that she was making her jajecznica -her scrambled eggs so, I was able to converse with her. But I never got the chance to speak to her about the deeper topics that I’m obviously involved with now. I started learning polish, really, when I met Kazimierz Piechowski because it was a reentrance into Poland I tried for many many years to come back to Poland, with my music but it was wasn’t an easy thing to do. And when I met Kazik I had already written a song about him and it was his kindness and his openness to me really made a big impact on the way I saw Poland. And I became very, very inspired by everything he was talking about, and his language, and he started to introduce me to songs Polish songs and would sing Polish songs to me. So, in effect, I really learned the Polish language from singing songs, and he encouraged me to learn a Polish patriotism from patriotic songs like Dziś do ciebie przyjść nie mogę, which is the partisan’s lullaby. There’s another favourite he heard which is O moj rozmarynie, which means Oh my Rosemary which is a story about a boy that becomes a soldier, and his journey through life. And then he also introduced me to the beautiful music of his youth of the 1930s in Poland and that included Hanka Ordonowna who is a beautiful singer she’s almosts like the Edith Piaf of Poland and she sings such beautiful songs, and also singers like Mieczyslaw Fogg, and Eugeniusz Bodo who was one of the biggest stars in the film and music world in Poland during the 1920s and 30s so I’ve been learning the songs. And this year I had the great pleasure of performing at the Polish Embassy to the Windermere children, the children who were saved from Auschwitz by an organisation here in UK post Second World War and moved to Lake Windermere for rehabilitation so I’ve had a wonderful journey of learning the Polish language through music and through songs.
MW : It’s really fantastic and I will say here it’s a great example for bilingual children here in the UK and anywhere else, and to look for Polish music and through this get inspiration to discover Polish history, Polish language so, all of your albums are great for it. But before I ask you, next question. Let’s listen to one of the tracks from the brand new album, Providence.
I’m chatting here with Katy Carr, and just before the track I saw that you are a great example for Poles living here in the UK and mostly for younger generation, people who are born in the UK and sometimes struggle with their Polish language, and you who are born here, that you had a break in your Polish, and you are proof that you can learn the language and you can come back to your roots as you did. It’s really a great inspiration for many of the people. It gives them motivation as well to you know practice Polish language and not forget, where you come from, where are your roots. Katy you wrote about 50 songs about the Second World War, it’s really incredible, what is the story behind it?
KC :
Yes, I started writing about the Second World War experiences from my British grandmother Dorothy she was very much an inspiration to me because she remembered WWII from an English person’s point of view, she lived in Loughborough in Leicestershire and she remembered what she had to do during the Second World War, which of course was a very different experience to what my Polish grandmother who had to endure during the war. But it was a valid experience for me because I really really valued, my English grandmother and I loved the fact that she taught me how to play the ukulele she was very musical, and she loved the songs of the 1930s and 40s. So I wrote an album really inspired by the story she told me called Coquette, in 2009, and on that album, I put as a last minute addition Kommanders Car, which I was hoping that would open the door to Poland, because I tried so hard to get back to Poland but it was so difficult, and it worked! I put the album out, the song, and the single, and it started to open doors for me and opened the door for me to meet Kazik, and it also opened the doors for me to make a film about Kazik called Kazik the Kommander’s Car. And it started to be a domino effect, and I was able to write my songs for Paszport which was everything Kazik told me about his time and experience during the WWII, which was completely different to my English grandmother’s time during the Second World War and, of course, a lot more brutal because Poland had to endure a huge amount of occupation from both sides, Germany and Russia and the Soviet Union, so it was a very big eye opening exercise for me. And I was also able to keep writing songs about Poland because there was still a lot of inspiration for me there
MW :
in your new album is also highlighted a story of Witold Pilecki and did you read the book about him and by Jack Fair-weather and was this an inspiration for you.
KC :
I was introduced to Witold Pilecki’s story by Kazik Piechowski because he’d been in contact and in conversation with Witold pilecki about his escape. So Pilecki was able to understand what was going to happen and he actually asked for a letter to be delivered to Warsaw by Kazik and the escapees in the car, so I learnt about his being for over a decade. I have read the book by Jack Fairweather, but I would prefer to read Witold’s Report because that’s the raw version and I prefer to hear the words from his own words, you know, historians have a way of writing about a topic, but I prefer to read what is a genuine report, and Witold’s Report was re released in Polish and in English in 2018 to celebrate 100 years of Polish Independence so I have both versions I have the Polish and the English version. And I think if listeners wanted to read the genuine words of Witold Pilecki then that is the place to look. And I’m very passionate about his words and I really just like to go straight to the source. And, and he has a lot to offer in those books. Historians are really translating that report into the books and obviously there is room for error in that as well. So I just warn readers as there is room for error when people don’t really understand the history of Poland. There can be room for error
MW :
So, how did Witold Pilecki himself inspire you to write your songs
KC :
Witold has been in my life for nearly 10 years now obviously because I’ve been introduced to him via Kazik’s because Witold advised on his escape from Auschwitz and he has been an integral part of my life and inspiration for 10 years, and I always wanted to pay tribute to him. But I really really got inspired when I went to see the Mokotow Prison where he spent his last days on this planet, and was going through a kangaroo trial, set up by the Soviet communists in Poland post Second World War and he was really set up, and he enjoyed gross cruelty and torture in this prison. And I went to see the actual cell that he had been in. And it had had a very big and moving effect on me. At the time I was reading George Orwell’s 1984 so I started to marry these topics together to do with the Thought Police or different surveillance that was going on during the Cold War. And I think George Orwell’s interest in the Polish emigre in the 1940s was of particular interest today.
MW :
One of your songs entitled Miracle on the Vistula Cud nad Wisłą which you wrote for Providence because this year 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the Battle on the Vistula, the river Vistula..
KC :
Miracle on the Vistula Cud nad Wisłą was on the 15th of August, 1920, and it was a decisive Polish victory during the Polish – Soviet war which lasted between 1919 to 1920. And it was named a miracle because it actually miraculously coincided with the Feast day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And my song really pays tribute to the river Vistula because it’s the longest, and it’s the largest river in Poland. And it’s inspired many Slavic myths and legends, including Queen Wanda of Poland in the eighth century, she allegedly threw herself into the river Vistula to avoid marrying a German prince.
MW :
So let’s listen to this song, and after that we will switch from English into the Polish language …
From here please listen to the embedded media player at the top of this page 🙂 for the Polish version