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Singing Out About HB2
Susan Werner's Debut of "Carolina" in Oriental
May 9, 2016

A
nd now, a song….

North Carolina will likely stay in the spotlight over its “bathroom law” now that Governor Pat McCrory has sued the US Justice Department (over its claim that NC’s HB2 violated the Civil Rights Act) and the Justice Department sued back.

mccorysusan werner
NC Governor Pat McCrory, left. Susan Werner, right.

The law’s impact on transgendered as well as gay people has brought a lot of attention to NC. Since HB2 passed 7 weeks ago, performers such as Cirque de Soleil, Pearl Jam, and Bruce Springsteen cancelled shows in protest.

But amid all of that, here in Oriental in April, a quieter voice sang out – literally.

This is the story of the song, “Carolina” which musician and songwriter Susan Werner wrote, and performed publicly for the first time at her April 14th concert at Oriental’s Old Theater.

W
hen the NC legislature passed HB2, it gave Susan Werner pause. She had 2 shows scheduled at Oriental’s Old Theater in April and the Chicago-based musician thought seriously about cancelling them.

But Werner, who’d played Oriental twice before and is one of the Pamlico Musical Society’s most requested performers, did come to Oriental.

When she performed, Werner didn’t tell her audiences about any misgivings. Instead, she did as she had in her earlier appearances. She played piano and guitar and sang songs she’d written with a keen and slinky sense of humor and an ear for disarming detail.

From the stage, she spoke about her daytime walks through Oriental, sometimes drawing parallels to her smalltown childhood on an Iowa farm, other times noting the differences. She told the audience of a visit to the marine consignment store in search of a real canvas sail – and described the look of pity in the store owner’s eyes when she said she did not, in fact, own a boat. She talked about her walk taking her past the sign for “Oriental Dental” and how the rhyme got her to instantly start writing lyrics:

Polish your smile,
over at Oriental Dental.
we’ll clean your plaque,
even the molars in back.

At Friday’s show, she spoke of being wakened by songbirds unfamilar to her, just outside her window at the Inn at Oriental. When some in the audience said birding expert Liz Lathrop could help, Werner got Liz to come on the stage and sing a bird call.

While she engaged the audience and held up a mirror on small town life, Susan Werner did not speak a word about the new NC law that she disagreed with.

She did write and sing about it, though.

At the Thursday night show, after one encore song, Werner sat at the piano for one more, a song called ‘Carolina.’

Musically, it carried echoes of James Taylor. Lyrically, it took the form of a lament about a friend showing an unfriendly side. It never mentions the bathroom law but by the end of the first stanza, it became clear that it was aimed at House Bill 2.

Susan Werner drew a standing ovation for that first-ever performance of the song. She closed her show with it the next night as well.

After her performance, TownDock.net asked Susan Werner about “Carolina.”

Writing a song was not Werner’s first reaction to the “bathroom law” and the rest of HB2.

“After Bruce Springsteen cancelled his show in NC,” Werner said, “I thought ‘Oh my God, I should do the same.’ I asked my road manager what she thought, and she said, ‘You’re not Bruce Springsteen, you know.’ Which is hilarious and obviously true. If I cancelled, it wouldn’t exactly be a media sensation, it wouldn’t provoke any thoughtful dialogue anywhere, as nobody much knows or cares who I am.”

susan werner lyrics carolina
The song, “Caroline”, was so new, Susan Werner referred to these pages of lyrics, some of which were still handwritten.

Weighing in on her decision were her previous appearances in Oriental, also organized by the Pamlico Musical Society.

“I know those folks and they’ve been so lovely to me.” Werner said. “I had a talk with my partner about this all, and she asked, ‘What’s your intended result with going, or not going to Oriental?’ And I thought hard about that.”

“My shows are always about an interaction with a room full of people – an animated conversation – and the best thing I could do would be to have an honest conversation with the people who would be kind enough to come to the shows Thursday and Friday night. That I should speak my mind, speak from the heart, and do it in person.”

But as those in Oriental’s Old Theater saw, she did not speak directly about HB2 but instead let the song speak for itself.

“As my friend Stephen Barefoot in Durham pointed out, the best way to express your thoughts, if you’re a writer, is to write. When I talk, sometimes people’s eyes glaze over. When I sing a song, I find that doesn’t happen quite as often.”

Back home in Chicago a few days after her shows in Oriental, Susan Werner recorded the song again:

Susan Werner lives in Chicago and is at work on a project with a NC connection – writing songs for a Broadway musical based on the film, “Bull Durham.” April was the third time she has performed in Oriental.

Posted Monday May 9, 2016 by Melinda Penkava


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