Michael Marra
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Michael Marra is a Dundee-born (1952) musician.
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[edit] Influences
Although deriving all his musical influences from the rock and roll canon that includes Tom Waits, Randy Newman, Bob Dylan, Marra's subject matter remains eccentrically Scottish with a Dundee focus in particular.
[edit] Major project
His most recent major project was the opera Nan Garland.
[edit] Protest song
In April 2006, having his fingerprints routinely taken by Customs in Washington – where he was performing as part of the Tartan Week – Michael Marra was inspired to write a protest song about Shirley McKie. (Former police officer Ms McKie had been wrongly accused of leaving her thumbprint at a murder scene in 1997. When she denied the print was hers, she was arrested and charged with perjury but was acquitted in 1999. In February 2006, Ms McKie received an out-of-court settlement of £750,000 from the Scottish Executive which first minister Jack McConnell described as a result of an honest mistake.) In the song, Marra writes:
- "We lecture children if they're telling lies/They will not prosper and they will not thrive.../And even the First Minister must sometimes stand naked."[1]
[edit] Football mad
Earlier, Marra wrote a song about his favourite footballer Hamish McAlpine called Hamish the Goalie.
