Small Town Joy
Carrie Marshall
Book of the Month: March 2025
Reviewed by Nyla Ahmad
From Bronski Beat (whose smash hit ‘Small Town Boy’ serves as the titular reference) to hyper-pop legend SOPHIE, Small Town Joy by Carrie Marshall explores Scottish music and its influence on the wider culture (did you know ship exports meant Scottish folk had a strong influence on Americana?), queer influence on Scottish artists (who hasn’t been inspired by David Bowie?) and the bustling queer music scene in Scotland.
Much like Marshall’s 2022 memoir, Carrie Kills a Man, Small Town Joy feels grounded in her lived experience. Marshall is both a creator and a fan, and she is a trans woman who has a multitude of experience in the music industry through decades of engagement, positioning her perfectly to tackle the topic with enthusiasm, grace and attitude. Marshall’s tone and perspective makes this work an absolute treat to read, and I can’t imagine anyone better suited to the task at hand.
Marshall’s opening gambit that ‘All your favourite music is queer’ charts that we have Black Lesbian singers in the 1920s, the bisexual Sister Rosetta Tharpe and ‘Little’ Richard Penniman to thank for much of the music we encounter. It’s a hard task to capture something that at a certain angle can feel niche (the intersection of queer and Scottish musicians), but from another angle feels completely all encompassing, as queer Scottish musicians have made an immeasurable impact on music. Thankfully Marshall makes the sinew transparent, and does an elegant job of weaving all the strands together; even managing to make the more speculative sections feel like expansion, not complete tangents.
Although I would have liked more of Marshall’s own experience throughout the book, I am well aware that her history as a music performer is covered in her memoir Carrie Kills a Man. There are references to her personal life in the book, but these are generally used as framing to understand the healing power of music when times are tough. In a book where there’s so much opportunity to sprawl, I do appreciate Marshall’s agility when it comes to rounding back to the point at hand.
Marshall doesn’t glamorise or idolise, but respects, interrogates and appraises the figures interviewed and discussed. There’s an affability here, and most chapters feel like someone describing a close friend or family member - the affection is sincere and obvious, but the opinions feel well rounded. I found myself laughing at the line ‘Billy Mackenzie was a free spirit, which is often a euphemism for a huge pain in the arse’. Marshall pokes fun in the way only those truly part of these communities can.
Although this book looks at joy, Marshall also speaks of the darker aspects of forging a career in music as the industry is no longer the fecund ground it once was. Music publications have dwindled, the days of A&R men travelling to Glasgow to sign the next big thing are long gone and, according to the Music Venue Trust, 125 UK Grassroots venues shut in 2023 alone. As culture expands across social media, genuine opportunity shrinks.
Marshall’s discussion of queerness also doesn’t just adhere itself to the realm of joy and considers the toil and misery that is often mined to produce musical gold. Queerness is presented in a kaleidoscope of ways. In these pages are explorations of queerness as resistance, queer oppression and queer as in ‘fuck you’.
Marshall also gives a thorough exploration of Scotland and its exports. There are the musicians you would expect, and Marshall speaks of and to the likes of Shirley Manson, Horse and Orange Juice. Marshall also speaks of grassroots initiatives, lesser known artists from further flung places and offers queer readings of Scottish figures, like exploring KT Tunstall’s assumed flagging with rainbow suspenders and how soft indie boys undermine stereotypical masculinity.
This whole book feels like a mixtape (and even features one at the end) lovingly assembled by a friend’s cool, knowledgeable older sister. The type of person you’d wear a band t-shirt in front of, painfully hoping they’d see something in you that you already see in them. In Small Town Joy, Marshall beautifully shows that queerness has always been present in music, always present in Scotland and that Scotland is a place for the queers and the weirdos to resist, flourish and make a lot of noise.
Small Town Joy is published by 404 Ink
Nyla Ahmad is a writer and musician from Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, now living in Glasgow. Her writing has appeared in Vittles, The Skinny, SINK #11, The Drouth and various zines. She is part of the team behind literary magazine Extra Teeth and currently works in the Scottish literary sector, leading on programming Book Week Scotland. She serves on the Society of Authors Comics Creators Network Steering Committee and the Glasgow Zine Library Board of Trustees. She has played bass in punk bands since she was 15, most notably in Joyce Delaney, and performs mononymously as a singer-songwriter.