‘Little Flame (feat. Ye Vagabonds)’
“We sang when we were drone-striked, when the sea was rough, and when we were anchored and waiting endlessly to leave.”
The American songwriter and activist Carsie Blanton will officially release the song ‘Little Flame’ on Friday, December 5th. The song features the unmistakable harmonies of Ye Vagabonds and will appear on Blanton’s upcoming album, Red Album Vol. II, which will be released on January 16th, 2026.
In recent years, Blanton has been fully adopted as one of our own here in Ireland. As a left-wing artist who leans toward political songwriting, she writes everything from jaw-dropping love songs to heartbreakingly honest reflections of the times we live in. Her live show fits into the Irish soul, sense of humour, and poetic tone as well as any homegrown act. We’re excited that she will return to our shores for a tour in April and May 2026, presented by Turning Pirate.
a truly special song that serves as a symbol of hope and courage in hard times. Written over a year ago, it was sung by Blanton and her shipmates most days on the Paola I – the boat they were on as part of the Global Sumud Flotilla mission to Gaza in September.
Blanton says:
“I wrote ‘Little Flame’ in a kind of fugue state that I've had only a handful of times in my 25+ years of songwriting. I don't feel responsible for that song and I don't feel ownership of it. The lyrics include many people and historical events, and it feels to me that they flowed through me in order to be remembered and carried into the future, because we need them to help us find hope and courage for the hard times ahead.”
She continues:
“While I was on the flotilla, we sang ‘the little flame’ most days on my boat, Paola I. My Italian comrade Abderrahmane would ask for me to go get my guitar when he felt we were getting stressed and needed to sing. We sang when we were drone-striked, when the sea was rough, and when we were anchored and waiting endlessly to leave.”
Starting on the night of October 1st, the humanitarian mission was illegally intercepted by Israeli occupation naval forces while in international waters. Blanton recalls singing ‘Little Flame’ on the boat while waiting to be intercepted:
“Ab said, ‘Carsie, guitar!’ – so I got it, and we sang it one last time, and then gave our guitars a sea burial.”
Miraculously, a video of the moment survived – watch it HERE.
Blanton and her comrades were subsequently taken to Israeli detention facilities, where widespread due-process violations were documented — LEARN MORE. During her five days in Ketziot, a sprawling Israeli prison complex in the Negev desert, Blanton and her comrades continued to sing:
“That's where I taught it to Rana Hamida, a Palestinian musician from New Zealand, who you can hear singing in the background on the recording. She taught me several songs in Arabic, and I taught her ‘Little Flame’. There was a very low moment in the prison where I was being marched somewhere by the Israeli military, and my boatmate Ipshita peeked through a cell door and yelled ‘a hundred years! A hundred more!’ and I absolutely wept.”
The flotilla's ordeal offered the world a brief glimpse into the oppression Palestinians confront every day.
“The way we were dehumanized was way less than the way Palestinians are dehumanised every day. I still can’t imagine what it is like to be a Palestinian in an Israeli detention. For us in the privileged Western world, we have to try to wrap our minds around it, to try to understand what is necessary to end the occupation and the genocide,”
Blanton said in an interview with BreakThrough News immediately following her release.
Ultimately, ‘Little Flame’ is a song that belongs to everyone – it has a life of its own and its own purpose. This is evident from the many covers that went viral by the likes of Maria Doyle Kennedy, Áine Tyrell and Cian Finn, Roesy, and Clare Sands, who performed the song next to the Bobby Sands mural on the Falls Road in Belfast. One particular version by the White Horse Guitar Club struck a deep chord with Blanton’s mother while the singer was still in captivity:
“On the boat, I was vaguely aware that there were many covers of the song happening back on land. Covering the song became a way for people to show solidarity with the flotilla and with Gaza. Our internet was limited on the boat (we were only supposed to use it for posting, not for scrolling!) so I missed a lot of these videos, but when I finally got home to the U.S., my mom told me she watched the White Horse Guitar Club cover of ‘Little Flame’ every day while I was in prison. (I think the big, burly Irishmen singing it with such tenderness made her feel that I was protected.)”
‘Little Flame’ is a song that has brought hope and courage in dark times — not just for Carsie Blanton, but for many who have heard and sung it.
“I feel honored to be allowed to carry it,” concludes Blanton.
