Mary Chapin Carpenter’s long-time musical
\ncollaborator\/co-producer\/guitarist John Jennings has called her
\nvoice “an invitation to intimacy.” Not physical intimacy, he’s
\nquick to add, but the emotional kind. And truly, her honey-sweet
\ntone and masterful phrasing on everything from the stillest of her
\nballads to her hardest-rocking flirtations suggest he’s zeroed on
\none of the keys to her appeal.<\/p>\n
What amazes me as a listener on this particular album, however,
\nis not so much the skill of the singer as it is the power of the
\nsongs. In a development that will undoubtedly come as a shock to
\npeople who have bought into some of the more insulting stereotypes
\nof “country” music, this album is one of the
\nwisest<\/i> I’ve ever heard. Every single lyric is infused with
\nan intelligence and emotional maturity that’s by turns startling
\nand engrossing.<\/p>\n
“In this world there’s a whole lot of trouble baby \/ In this
\nworld there’s a whole lot of pain \/ In this world there’s a whole
\nlot of trouble but \/ A whole lot of ground to gain,” Carpenter
\nbegins, establishing the theme of resiliency that echoes through
\nthis entire album, even as the song’s country-gospel sound –
\nanchored by piano, fiddle and a chorus of background vocalists –
\nreinforces its spiritual undercurrents.<\/p>\n
As if constructing a novel, she moves then from establishing her
\nprincipal theme to a bit of character history, illustrating in the
\nsteadily-rocking “House Of Cards,” a possibly autobiographical
\nvision of a suburban childhood where “On the surface it looked so
\nsafe \/ But it was perilous underneath.” In the title tune that
\nfollows, the search for emotional connections that ring true
\nextends from the family out into the broader society. A folkish
\nhymn to lost innocence, “Stones in the Road” places on the table
\nthe idealism of a generation that admired Martin Luther King and
\nBobby Kennedy – and then carves up the self-satisfaction it has
\ndegenerated into: “We pencil in, we cancel out, we crave the corner
\nsuite \/ We kiss your ass, we make you hold, we doctor the
\nreceipt… A thousand points of light or shame \/ Baby, I don’t
\nknow.”<\/p>\n
Turning inward once again, Carpenter then steers us through a
\nmelodic, fully-realized series of life lessons. First “Tender When
\nI Want To Be” makes a rippling plea for breaking down emotional
\nbarriers (“Don’t ever let me hesitate \/ To be tender when I want to
\nbe”). Then “A Keeper For Every Flame” offers a sharp little fable
\nabout the way romantic longing sometimes overpowers realism (“I
\nthought my heart was broken but it was just a little bruised \/ I
\nthought love had spoken, guess I was just confused”). Soon after,
\nthe title of “The Last Word” serves as the unsung punchline to a
\nstark, compelling retelling of two lovers’ final confrontation: “I
\nfinally realized \/ You need it more than you need me \/ You can have
\nit, I don’t want it, and when you’ve got it, I’ll be gone.”<\/p>\n
Leavening the mix smack in the middle of the album is “Shut Up
\nAnd Kiss Me,” a rollicking come-on that nonetheless has wisdom
\naplenty of its own to impart: “There’s something about the silent
\ntype \/ Attracting me to you \/ All business baby, none of the hype \/
\nThat no talker can live up to.” Some juicy slide guitar from Lee
\nRoy Parnell and Trisha Yearwood’s background vocals round out this
\nfive minute party\/intermission, before it’s back to business with
\nseveral more well-crafted looks at the ways we constantly search
\nfor connections (including the remarkable “John Doe No. 24,” with
\nits soaring Branford Marsalis sax work).<\/p>\n
Finally, Carpenter falls back as if spent to the core of her
\nargument: the key to resiliency is love – but not necessarily
\nromantic love. The purest love, she argues in the closing “This is
\nLove,” is less about passion and romance than it is about a
\nfundamental commitment to the other person’s emotional well-being.
\nIt is a love that, in the end, grants you peace by being able to
\novercome even the hardest of hard feelings (a theme Don Henley hit
\na career peak on with “The Heart Of The Matter”). Listen in for a
\nminute as the piano rolls to a steadily ascending beat, crowned by
\nthe last line:<\/p>\n
“And I see you still and there’s this catch in my
\nthroat and<\/p>\n
I just swallow hard til it leaves me<\/p>\n
There’s nothing in this world that can change what we
\nknow<\/p>\n
Still I know I am here if you ever need me<\/p>\n
And this is love”<\/p>\n
For anyone who’s ever experienced any real turbulence in their
\nrelationships, these lines are likely to carry the power of
\nwell-delivered two-by-four. Love hurts, Carpenter seems to say, but
\nwhen we succeed in riding that pain out and returning to our
\neternal search for connection, we win the only battle we’ll ever
\nreally need to in our lifetime. To me, the thirteen exceptionally
\nwell-written and played songs on
\nStones In The Road<\/i> speak wisdom of a quality that is as rare
\nin popular music as true love is in life itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":24601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5880],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-35805","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-mary-chapin-carpenter","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35805"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35805"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}