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SOAK’s Quiet Waters Run Deep

SOAK

The openly gay Irish singer-songwriter is proud of marriage equality in both countries

"My names's SOAK, like the bathtub," says Bridie Monds-Watson, better known as SOAK, from a circular stage at the center of New York City's Le Poisson Rouge after completing the first number in her set.

Her banter with the audience: soft spoken, but not demure, is in keeping with her music: honest and lyrical vocals quietly--but not quite shyly--sung over an acoustic guitar. At 18, despite having released a critically acclaimed full-length album, it's clear that she's still a teenager.

"I went to L.A. and felt like Hannah Montana," she explains onstage, reflecting on her U.S. tour. "Last night I went to the Empire State Building and felt like Spiderman."

If this is a teenage sensibility -- feeling things deeply while only having a rudimentary skill set to make sense of it -- SOAK is by no means naive. In fact, she comes of wise beyond her years and preternaturally talented. Rather she expresses emotions and events vibrantly and dynamically, while someone older might use more muted tones.

"You've got a problem/ I cannot fix it/ Hear the anger through the ceiling/ I wish I missed it," she sings in "Blud," a song about hearing her parents argue in the kitchen through the floor of her second story bedroom.

An adult might would be better equipped to deal with the realities of marriage and recognize that relationships have hard times built in. For a teenager, this sort of thing is earth shattering, as the chorus intones:

"You're in my blood/ I'm in your blood/ You're in my blood/ Let's just forget/ Let's just forget."

It is this meshing of musical talent and raw, unvarnished, and unmitigated feeling that makes SOAK's music so engrossing. She is able to take something in -- an experience, idea, emotion -- and reconstruct it musically.

As the young lesbian rounded up her set, she mentioned that she was very proud of America for legalizing same-sex marriage and said she was proud of Ireland, her home country, for being the first country to legalize it through a popular vote. She says this with a tinge of glee in her voice, the same tinge of glee present when she said that Chipotle is her favorite thing about America.

As with everything else, she takes all of America in and puts it all back out for us to share with her.

Advocate Channel - The Pride StoreOut / Advocate Magazine - Fellow Travelers & Jamie Lee Curtis

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Alex Panisch