One of the best ways to make good folk\/country music is to wear your heart on your sleeve; to let your feelings, passions and beliefs hang right out there where everyone can see them. Mary Chapin Carpenter has been doing that for years; from \u201cQuittin\u2019 Time\u201d to \u201cThis Shirt\u201d (one of the greatest songs of all time, bar none) to \u201cDown At The Twist And Shout,\u201d you always knew what she was feeling. But let me tell you, O Ye DV Faithful, she\u2019s never been as naked as this.<\/p>\n
The Calling<\/i>, Carpenter\u2019s new CD, is magnificent, wonderful, passionate, enlightening — but most of all it\u2019s naked, scarily so. The anger, the sorrow, the love, the joy is right there on the surface, woven in with Carpenter\u2019s rich contralto voice, and there are moments where it left me stunned at the sheer power of it.<\/p>\n
First off: Carpenter is pissed off. She is tired of the jingoistic crap that seven years of Dubya has provided the United States, and she\u2019s willing to say it in no uncertain terms. \u201cOn With The Song,\u201d her tribute to the Dixie Chicks in light of their courageous stance against the war in Iraq and George W. Bush, is scathing, blunt and rhetorically brilliant. In four minutes, she takes on rednecks, evangelicals, cowardly country music radio programmers, Dubya, Cheney and anyone else who called for Natalie Maines\u2019 head after she spoke her mind.<\/p>\n
Carpenter is mourning, as well. \u201cHouston\u201d captures the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina — both the destruction and the failure of the government\u2019s response — better than any talking head could do. From the opening lines she had me: \u201cMama\u2019s got her babies \/ Sitting in a grocery cart\u201d\u2026strong stuff. \u201cCloser and Closer Apart\u201d is a microcosm of breakup and loss, and \u201cLeaving Song\u201d is an incredible snapshot of the moment of\u2026well\u2026leaving.<\/p>\n
Yet, in the end, Carpenter has hope. \u201cThe Calling,\u201d \u201cWe\u2019re All Right,\u201d \u201cOn And On It Goes,\u201d \u201cHere I Am\u201d — there is still brightness in Carpenter\u2019s world, and she thinks it\u2019s worth celebrating. So do I. When she hits her crescendo on \u201cWhy Shouldn\u2019t We,\u201d her voice wrapping around the words \u201cWe believe in things we\u2019re told we cannot change, why shouldn\u2019t we? We had heroes once, and we will again, why shouldn\u2019t we?,\u201d there is power in her music; power and majesty and healing, something that you don\u2019t hear very often — something we could use more of.<\/p>\n
The Calling<\/i> may be Carpenter\u2019s greatest CD. It\u2019s certainly one of the greatest CDs I\u2019ve heard this year, and worth your hard-earned cash. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":28971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5880],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-40477","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\/40477","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\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40477"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}