Siskin Green is a Scottish feminist folk trio – Jane Bentley (percussion), Suzanne Butler (fiddle, guitar) and Margaret McLarty (guitar, banjo, piano) – who made their first appearance at Greenbelt Festival in 2023. Their self-titled album, released in August 2023, is rich with original songs, reworked hymns and songs from John Bell, each with warmth, hope and sisterhood.
Have you been to the festival before?
Jane: It would have been over 20 years for me, coming with the Iona community and then Sticky Music. And you have so many people that you’ve met before and some are just Greenbelt friends that you just see at Greenbelt as well. It’s been a big part of my life.
Suzanne: Yeah, it’s become a big part of ours as well because Margaret and I both work with a children’s music organisation called Fischy Music. We’ve been long term fixtures at Greenbelt, we’ve come most years for about 20 years. So it does feel very familiar, it’s like we’re among friends here.
Margaret: I first came maybe 15 years ago just as a punter and then had a few years of volunteering with recorded talks. Then did a bit in the Iona community and then been with Fischy for about 10 years. It feels very much like home for all of us, I think.
You formed as Siskin Green during the lockdown. How did the band come about?
Margaret: So John Bell, who is a regular Greenbelt speaker, and Jo Love were doing BBC Reflections at the Quay every Sunday morning, and they’d been asked to lead one of these on women. He wanted to use some of their songs around women and thought, ‘I should get some women to sing these.’ We had four songs we had to record for that at the height of lockdown. So two metres apart, full PPE, travel permits and everything, it was such a lifeline for us because we hadn’t been playing music.
Jane: That first rehearsal was amazing. We weren’t allowed to travel much except for work. So I went across from Glasgow to Edinburgh, for work reasons, and then we got to play music, for work reasons.
Suzanne: It was just bam for the spirit wasn’t it, after all those months alone in our houses. I think we just thought, if we can enjoy something under such stressful circumstances maybe there’s something here that we want to continue.
Where did Siskin Green come from?
Margaret: I’ve got this book, Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours, it’s this very old book, which basically gives you all the colours in nature in the 17 or 1800s, and so we thought we might find an interesting word in here. A Siskins is a little type of bird, almost the size of a sparrow, it’s kind of yellowy green.
What inspired you to put the album together?
Jane: John very quickly and generously approached us and said, “Would you like to collaborate on an album?” and opened up his catalogue of songs that he’d written about women or with women, or others that are written by women. So we’ve got almost half from that body of work, and then there’s some written by us in the band. And then we found treasured old hymns that actually could have a new spin or a different kind of life.
Suzanne: We had the overarching theme of women’s voices. We knew the kind of style that we wanted to work in, with lots of harmony and using the instruments that we all play. We worked together to arrange them in quite an organic sort of way.
What does feminism mean to you?
Suzanne: I think for me, it’s about inclusion and equality primarily. It’s not about being a man hater, or saying that women are better than men. It’s about seeing we all have our place, and we don’t feel yet that people who identify as women have an equal place alongside men, despite the many advances that we’ve come through.
Margaret: Even five or six years ago feminism to me felt very serious, but I think things like the Guilty Feminist Podcast and different comedians are just being a little bit more playful with what it actually means to be women today working in the arts, because that’s what feminism has always been. But I just feel like there’s a little bit more playfulness with it now, which is lovely.
Jane: Sometimes, doing the thing on your own terms, and not even having to necessarily reference the big debate, we’re just doing our thing without having to always argue or to be against something. To just be. The licence to be who you are as a woman and not fit any particular mould or prescribed role in society.
Suzanne: Particularly given that we’ve been quite involved with churches and with our cultural heritage of Christianity. There’s a lot of love/hate there, I’m really glad that I was brought up with a faith but looking back, there’s so much about it that that wasn’t equal, and it didn’t allow women their voice and still doesn’t. I think we want to still be alongside that tradition, but obviously, we are women using our voices and very delighted to be doing so.
How can we maintain faith religiously or not, in ever more troubling times?
Suzanne: I think we need our communities. I go to church semi-regularly and every time I go, I think I’m here because this is where I realised there’s other people who are at least intending or wishing to try and be a force for positive change and leave the place better than we found it. I think I couldn’t possibly sustain any hope if it weren’t for other people alongside, like you two or the faith community. So for me, having other people to be a bit of the hearth, there’s warmth and light there, even though there’s winds and darkness and terrible things going on.
Jane: Authenticity as well. I think we’ve had years of facades and very polished exteriors, I think it’s time to be very honest and very open and to dig deep into whatever is going on underneath. And I think people respond to that when they see it and recognise it.
Maragaret: For me holding on to faith is less about finding the thing that’s solid and more about, what are the ways that we can be curious around that and ask questions, or just hold it a little bit more lightly? So for me, there’s a lightness.
Suzanne: So you’re slipping your way through the forest, rather than pounding your way through on big heavy feet?
Margaret: I’m not expecting there to be a path, I suppose. Why would there be a path in the forest? We’re all just making your way through, and if you only go the path you might not see that cool bird over there.
Suzanne: Music and art as well, I think is a way of expressing the things we struggle with and also finding comfort, community, solidarity and joy.
For more information about Siskin Green, visit their website.
