Mary Chapin Carpenter: Between Here And Gone - 2004
In many ways, this is Mary Chapin Carpenter’s most accomplished album. Written in the wake of 9/11 it contains some truly beautiful, emotive, mature and genuinely moving lyrics. It was certainly no country rock album, no tuneful guitar riffs and hooky choruses.
Many of the songs are gentle, reflective and sung against a many-textured soundscape. It is packed full of emotion, but it is certainly not brooding or melancholy. It is certainly sad when it needs to be, but it is a sadness of maturity, of acceptance of mortality, of a need to change but to respect the past. Feelings fly around the album, like swooping birds, they come and go, from song to song and eventually it all fits together in one complete, life-affirming whole. From quite a lot of sadness comes a state of grace, of spiritual, inner fulfilment. All this from a gnarled old punk like me? Yes, for sure.
What Would You Say To Me is a fiddle backed gentle, country-ish slow groove with Mary’s voice just at its peak - melodic, expressive and that unique homeliness that makes you feel as if she is in your room and that you know her. Some lovely laid-back piano and guitar in the middle too. A big, dramatic instrumental and vocal ending lifts you up high. A fine piece of slide-style guitar introduces the lovely Luna's Gone. It has a hook, but it is a gentle hook. No tub thumper or country stomp.
My Heaven is one of my favourite songs of hers. A simply beautiful song where Mary ruminates on what it like in Heaven - her own personal Heaven - “Grandma’s up here and Grandpa too, in a condo with “to die for” views...”. What a line. Also up there is her “childhood dog and Dad’s old chair”. I’m almost in tears just listening to it and writing this. Just one of my favourite songs of all time. No question.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, or any more moving comes Goodnight America, a beautifully sung, low key work of perfection. “I’m driving into Houston on a rain-swept Texas road...”. A gentle piano lifts the melody higher. A song full of character. Another quietly emotional song is Between Here And Gone, sung quietly against a gentle piano and violin backing. It is a song about loss and grief. The whole album moves me greatly. I simply cannot state that enough. One Small Heart has a slowly shuffling fiddle, slide guitar and drum beat and more tender lyrics about “one small heart and a great big soul that’s driving...”. My emotions are a mess after listening to all these songs, in that they move my soul so much.
Mary always likes to lift the mood a little occasionally, though, although it is always with a tinge of sadness, somehow. So, on Beautiful Racket we see MCC break out her electric guitar and rock out a bit, albeit tunefully as always. Nobody else can make an upbeat, joyous rock song still sound so intrinsically sad. Uplifting yet reflective simultaneously. Some nice lead guitar at the end, too, almost Springsteen-esque.
Girls Like Me is familiar ground for Mary, exploring her shy, sensitive character and looking back on her younger days, Janis Ian style. River is a big, full, graceful slow rock song with a pounding drum sound and swirling E Street Band-style organ and clunking piano notes. Great guitar too. Mary’s voice is strong and dominating throughout.
Then there is Grand Central Station. It is a 9/11 song, but it is no flag-waving call for revenge. It is one man’s story of that day delivered sensitively by Mary Chapin Carpenter. It is impossibly emotive. It is a serious compliment to say Bruce Springsteen could not have written any better song than this. “Tomorrow I’ll be back there working on the pile....”. Nothing more can be said. A truly mighty song.
Shelter From Storms wraps us in Mary’s emotional security again, with another sparsely-backed uplifting lament, if that is not to oxymoronic. Beautiful piano at the end. Elysium is a suitably titled closer for this heavenly-inspired album, an acoustically-driven reflective song that breaks out into a rising semi-chorus, accompanied by some mournful, almost Celtic violin. This is holy music. This was a holy album.
