Karine Polwart: ‘I’ve always had a morbid fear of laying all my angst out in public’

Life has come full circle for Scotland’s Karine Polwart, the occasional BBC Radio 2 Folk Award winner.

Almost 10 years ago, Polwart was lauded as the next big thing in contemporary folk, a creative voice who was getting lovers of this newish genre all hot and bothered with works such as her 2004 debut, Faultlines. That album and its 2006 follow-up, Scribbled in Chalk, had Scottish folk/roots etched on its every crease, yet was invested with a modernity that few in the genre were attempting.

Around the same time, there was chatter about Polwart gamboling along similar paths as fellow Scot KT Tunstall, who (for a while, anyway) left her folk roots behind for a successful stint as a pop star. Polwart, however, stuck with the tradition, with her potent songs to the fore.

Potency, however, doesn't pay the bills, and a recent marriage break-up didn't exactly fill Polwart with joy. (She wrote about the latter in a clever Herald Scotland article that connected her own personal dissolution with the Yes vote: "It means sketching new charts to navigate places that were once familiar, but which look suddenly strange. It is easy to feel lost.")

The creative side of her brain is now awash with the potential for exploration.

“What I’m finding now for the first time as a writer and as a singer is ways to talk about my own experience without being mawkish, indulgent or overly confessional,” she says. “I’ve always had a morbid fear of being one of those songwriters who lay their entire angst out in public.”

The power in holding back

Polwart got into music through trad. What she loved about it, she says, was the way in which it opened up discussions around profound emotions in an objective way.

“It was deeply moving to me, but because a lot of the songs were told as stories or had a third-party narrator, there was power in not laying everything bare. That’s what I like most about traditional song – not all is said. You have to read between the lines.”

When it came to penning her own material for her debut and subsequent albums, Polwart says she always preferred not write about herself, but rather other people and places.

“Over the years, when you add all the songs together, of course you’re writing about yourself. And they say a lot about me, so no surprises there.”

Now, she notes, she is negotiating ways to bring in more personal material but without saying everything. It’s a fine line.

“It is, but I’m trying to get across things that I know and feel deeply, personally, yet with a bigger narrative arc. That’s the strength of folk music, I think. It’s the way it resonates with people, and the universal quality of the songs come from the particulars of the stories. They’re not at odds with each other, but are actually necessary.

“I guess I’m beginning to get the hang of it all, to feel okay to get up on stage and say, ‘Here are a few thoughts that are personal to me’, and to then spin it into something a little broader.”

A fierce self-editor, Polwart says she ideally wants her words to conjure images, but there also needs to be within them identity and, she emphasises, ambiguity. Is there a cynical part of her that views emotional conflict as good source material?

“The past few years of my life has seen me go through a marital separation, and there have been a few tricky things happen,” she says. “I haven’t written about them in song yet, but I have in prose pieces and articles, and I’ve taken great care to be mindful of all the other people involved, and to not be exploitative or manipulative. I’m not necessarily checking in with those people, but in my own head I’m making sure that things are okay to write. There are enough break-up albums in the world.”

Caution prevents her from writing songs about her personal problems. “I’m aware I’m at a point now in my life where I could write about certain things in careful and meaningful ways without offending anybody else. I’m aware that it’s a resource, absolutely.

“And so that’s where I am at the moment,” says Polwart, sounding more optimistic than perhaps she should be, a smart, creative person working out how to continue her life, her career, her passion.

“I’m between albums, as they say, and a lot of that had to do with domestic stuff that happened. If I’m honest, I haven’t written overmuch, but I’m starting to assemble songs and realising there’s a proper power in connecting with other people’s experiences.

“That’s the thing I enjoy, when you know you’ve hit the nail on the head.”

[ templebartrad.com ]

TEMPLE BAR TRADFEST: FOUR MUST-SEE SHOWS

• FOLK Two of Britain's finest contemporary folk performers, Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman (right), display the eclectic nature of their work as a duo. January 29th, 8pm, St Werburgh's Church
• INTERVIEW Broadcaster John Kelly interviews Donovan, the renowned singer-songwriter behind classic songs such as Mellow Yellow, Hurdy Gurdy Man and Jennifer Juniper. January 30th, 6pm, House of Lords
• TRAD? NOT TRAD The Undertones continue to defy the ageing process by blasting out their much-loved teen-scene punk pop. January 30th, 8pm, Button Factory
• CLOSING CONCERT Celebrating 10 years of TradFest, this gala concert features John Sheahan, Damien Dempsey, Declan O'Rourke (left), Susan McKeown and quite a few more. February 1st, 8.30pm, Dublin Castle