‘MY MUSIC KEEPS ME SAFE'
The talented songstress has poured the pain of childhood abuse into an album
Miriam Clancy sat in front on an old pink piano in her small New York apartment a couple of years ago, tapping keys to match a very special set of lyrics she’d written.
A long-time musician, wife and mum of four, Miriam is also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. The song the Auckland-born artist had penned, Velveteen, speaks about the horrors that gave her complex post-traumatic stress disorder and how she’s finally taking back her power.
“I love fashion and fabric, and the word ‘velveteen’ represents an ultra-feminine way of wrapping myself in something I love – music – to keep myself safe,” explains the talented songstress, 49, chatting to Woman’s Day from Pennsylvania ahead of the release of her new album Black Heart.
“It’s about my childhood abuse and how I fell between the cracks in the legal system, and was grilled and called a liar,” she shares. “Back then, the police didn’t believe me, which is something I’ve always carried. Velveteen is like a mantra where I’m saying it happened, but I’m not going to let it feel like a loss.”
Miriam grew up in Ma-ngere, Auckland, with both her parents playing in bands and her father singing in pubs around New Zealand. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree, and Miriam and her brother Sean, an electric guitarist, also fell in love with music, but when their dad left, the siblings moved to Foxton with their mum. Miriam was seven when she learnt to play piano and nine the first time she wrote a song about a lost teddy.
“Even before the abuse, I came from domestic violence and learning to play the piano gave me a portal to hope, and I loved it so much,” tells the mum of Diego, 22, Shiloh, 14, Jake, 12, and Zipporah, 10.
After years of being mentored by established local Ma- ori musicians who recognised Miriam’s talent, she moved to Wellington and joined a band with Aaron Tokona, the late musician from ’90s rock group Weta.
“It was the coolest band, man,” she enthuses. “Then I was asked to do a gig in Auckland, which was heading to Malaysia, and I thought, ‘It’s my ticket – I’m out of here!’ I sang Celine Dion and Mariah Carey songs with these beautiful LGBTQ queens deep in Kuala Lumpa, and it was such a magical scene, but so scary because it was illegal.”
Tragically, while in her early twenties, history repeated itself when Miriam was kidnapped and assaulted in the Malaysian capital one evening while walking home. She managed
‘I was grilled and called a liar. The police didn’t believe me’
to fight the man off and kicked the door of his car open, before sliding out and running to the police station.
“I didn’t have a lot of smarts, and would go back and forth between my apartment at night, but that’s no excuse – it shouldn’t have happened,” she asserts. “I needed to go home to New Zealand after that because I was pretty depressed. I went to Auckland and spent time with Mum, just having roasts together and hanging out.”
Then, almost 25 years ago, Miriam fell in love with her husband JP, 51, who works as a location scout manager for the film industry in Los Angeles. Seven months after meeting on Great Barrier Island, where JP was raised, the couple married.
In 2005, accompanied by their five-year-old son, the pair moved to California to check out the US music market.
It took Miriam until her late forties to finally write a song about what happened to her as a child. As part of her healing, the singer-songwriter’s working with a lawyer from Shine New Zealand, a domestic violence support service, to hopefully reopen the investigation and seek justice.
“I’ve often written about the depths and depression I’ve been in, but I’ve never turned it around and said it’s because of the abuse,” tells Miriam. “Now it’s important for me to claim my ground that’s been stolen. When you’ve had things said about you or done to you, it’s so important to speak back at it.”
After requesting her files from police, and receiving a stack of evidence, reports and statements, Miriam decided to use them as props in the music video for her single Velveteen.
The singer describes her new record, Black Heart, as honest, a little ’90s, and a mix of indie and alternative rock.
“I wanted to go into this album with grace and strength, and I’m trying to get some vindication for myself, even if I’m the only one who can give that,” she concludes. “I’ve had so many people tell me how great it is I’m doing this because it’s also putting their pain and experiences into a song. It was hard, but I decided to make art out of it.”
To chat to someone confidentially about sexual harm, call Safe To Talk on 0800 044 334, text 4334 or visit safetotalk.nz.