Mary Chapin Carpenter: The Dirt And The Stars - 2020

 

My beloved Mary Chapin Carpenter is back, like an old friend you haven’t seen for a few years. We meet up and talk for hours, at times getting emotional, but at all times serious, affectionate and sincere. Listening to her albums is like that. The sister I never had.

Farther Along And Further In reminds us just what a song-writing craftswoman Mary Chapin Carpenter is, its slow, melodic, insistent beat in perfect time with her always wise words and expressive, comforting voice. Mary doesn’t really do throwaway songs, not these days anyway, everything has a serious, heartfelt, thoughtful meaning. This is certainly one of those.

A delightful piano, guitar and drum intro welcomes in the once more reassuring words of It’s Ok To Be Sad. Mary is in her sixties now, like me, and she knows how to tell it like it is even more than she ever did. All Broken Hearts Break Differently is also a typically gentle but moving MCC song. When I hear things like this all is ok in my world, despite the sadness in the song. Her voice soothes me.

Mary loves a bit of tender nostalgia and she brings it out for us in the beautiful, reflective Old D-35 (a guitar) “twilight in the fall and the sound of your old D-35”. Lovely. Voice, guitar and piano combine perfectly here.Mary has become increasingly cynical about US politics in recent years (unsurprisingly) and she expresses that here on the Mark Knopfler-esque American Stooge. I’m not sure who the corrupt politician is she is referring to, but it could be any of them, to be honest. Either way, it’s a great song, powerful and pulling no punches.  It is also here that the album gets a bit grittier, albeit briefly.

Where The Beauty Is returns us to warm sensitivity, as indeed does the tender Nocturne. You know, I can honestly say that Mary has never written a bad song. Time for a bit of typical Mary riffy rock on Secret Keepers, a fine song notable also for being the cause of Mary’s first “parental advisory” sticker for her “you fucked it up” line. Nice guitar solo in it too. 

The album ends with two quiet numbers in Asking For A Friend and Everybody’s Got Something before a classic piece of MCC guitar rock nostalgia in Between The Dirt And The Stars (about listening to The Rolling Stones’ Wild Horses).  Nobody does this sort of thing better than our Mary. 

Popular posts from this blog

THE ROLLING STONES

Image
  Ah, The Rolling Stones. Where do I start?  I guess I was first made aware of them as a seven or eight year-old in the 1966-67-68 period when they started to appeal to my heightening sense that the all-conquering Beatles were goody-goodies and The Stones were proper bad boys. My developing tastes found this to be an admirable thing. Even at that age, there was a nascent feeling that if the older generation - parents, teachers and the like, even the judiciary - despised them, they must have something about them. Ironically, though, my Mother loved The Stones.  Then, of course,  there was the music - loud, punchy, riffy, buzzy and singalong, but not in a  "she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.."  way, but in a  "he can't be a man because he doesn't smoke the same cigarettes as me"  style. The Stones always had a healthy cynicism and a bit of tongue-in-cheek humour that appealed to me no end.  Not only that, there was the look - the cockiness, the l...
View Full Post »

Joni Mitchell: For The Roses - 1972

Image
  Things liven up for Joni Mitchell from the bleakness of Blue  a little (well only slightly) on this more melodic and playful offering (again, only at times) although it is still essentially Joni as singer-songwriter accompanying herself.   A song like  Banquet  is a lovely song - with some wonderfully inventive lyrics about who gets the marrowbone and who gets the gristle - but its piano and vocal sound is nothing we haven't heard before. The same applies to  Lesson In Survival , but again I cannot deny its stark, lyrical, poetic beauty. "I looked again at the ocean, love to see that green water in motion...". Joni never fails to delver, does she? For The Roses  is beautifully, acoustically warm. It is simply lovely songwriting too, I can't hope to convincingly analyse it.  See You Sometime  is in the same category. "I spring from the boulders like a mama lion" is my pick of the lyrics here. Musically similar is  Wo...
View Full Post »

Simple Minds: Street Fighting Years - 1989

Image
This was a totally different beast of an album. It as the product of a mature band who had "made it". For that reason, it attracted criticism of being self-satisfied and smug. I'm not sure about that. It is a cohesive, solid piece of work. It is decidedly uncommercial, dark in ambience and political in its lyrical motivation. It suffers a little from CD bloat in being over an hour in length. Too long for someone like me brought up on sixties and seventies albums.  Anyway, it begins with a smoother, bassier, almost jazzy and laid-back sound in  Street Fighting Years . It is great to hear some bass dominating a Simple Minds track. Despite some orchestrated bolder parts, it is overall a most atmospheric, but low-key introduction to the album. A similar acoustic vibe is found on  Soul Crying Out . As is often the case, Simple Minds seem to be mirroring U2 in the stages of their musical development.  Wall Of Love  is more robust and chunky, with more clearly U2-influ...
View Full Post »

Jethro Tull: Songs From The Wood - 1977

Image
  Jethro Tull changed their style quite a few times during the seventies and, at the height of punk, they released this lovely album of authentic English folk-rock, to considerable success.  Ian Anderson is pictured on the cover as a woodsman tending his fire and the whole album is bucolic in ambience, dominated by Anderson's rustic flute. I love it. That is not surprising as I love traditional British folk rock.  Songs  From The Wood  begins with Steeleye Span-Fairport Convention a capella rural English vocal introduction before it bursts out into a thumping piece of flute and drums-powered piece of vibrant folk rock. Forget their mid-seventies lengthy prog rock excursions for a minute, in many ways, this is exactly what I feel Jethro Tull should be. Check out Ian Anderson's superb flautism (is that a word?) on this. The melody here is almost Elizabethan.  More archetypal Tull can be heard on the acoustic-bass-flute Tull-folk melody of  Jack-In-The-Gr...
View Full Post »

MARY CHAPIN CARPENTER

Image
I have written extensively about Mary Chapin Carpenter in my various reviews of her albums, so at the risk of repeating myself I will briefly say that I admire her work immensely.  I consider her to be a singer-songwriter of the highest quality, one of the very best. She is wise, clever, sensitive, expressive, emotive and one thing I really like about her is she grows old with me, the two of us having been born in the same year, 1958. The feelings and emotions she expresses in each album are “age appropriate”.  Click on the images to read the reviews.
View Full Post »

UB40: Labour Of Love II - 1989

Image
Released in 1989, I love this album, possibly even more so than the wonderful Labour Of Love 1. It is full of atmospheric covers of reggae classics delivered by Ali Campbell’s unique voice. Despite never having been remastered the sound is still good. I lived in Moseley, Birmingham, at the time and it is so evocative of that part of the city.   Highlights for me are their versions of  Lord Creator ’s  Kingston Town ;  Honey Boy ’s  Sweet Cherrie ,  Smokey Robinson ’s  The Way You Do The Things You Do ; a superbly bassy, toasty take on  John Holt ’s  Wear You To The Ball   and  The Kingstonian ’s  Singer Man .  Tears From My Eyes  and the laid-back but catchy  Groovin'   are both most attractively covered while  Wedding Day  and  Impossible Love  are sweet, soulful hartbrreakers.   Homely Girl  is lovely too.   Here I Am Baby  (originally done by soul leg...
View Full Post »

Don Henley: The End Of The Innocence - 1989

Image
  This was ex-Eagle Don Henley's third solo album.  I remember getting it back in 1989 and being relieved that, for an eighties album, it was decidedly synthesiser-free, and was a proper rock album in that guitar, drum, piano West Coast way that it had. It was a pleasant mix of hard rockers and moving, melodic, romantic rock ballads. I much prefer the love songs, and some of the rockers are a bit run of the mill. For some reason though, I find it a bit dated these days, which is possibly a little harsh as it still has its good points. Possibly the slightly muffled, unremastered sound and those accursed programmed drums. What was with that strange hairstyle on the front cover, though, Don?   The End Of The Innocence  will always be a delight. Featuring the instantly recognisable piano sound of Bruce Hornsby, it is a perfect piece of summer's day, easy West Coast rock. The piano refrain is thoroughly irresistible, as too is the chorus and the lyrics are crammed full of...
View Full Post »

Dire Straits: Making Movies - 1980

Image
  Released in 1980, this was the album that saw Dire Straits take their first steps from being a cultish 'pub rock'-ish, somewhat introspective band into a multi million selling outfit beloved of those whose only other albums were by Phil Collins and Michael Jackson.  This wasn’t quite  Brothers In Arms  though and is still a highly credible album.  First of all, it contains the magnificent opener,  Tunnel Of Love , a seven minute gloriously atmospheric tale of the fairgrounds in  Whitley Bay , in the UK’s gritty  North East .  Mark Knopfler ’s guitar from half way through is just heavenly, joined by  Roy (E St B and) Bittan  on piano as it fades out, taking the listener truly through the pearly gates.  "Girl it looks so pretty to me, like it always did, just like the Spanish City to me, when we were kids". What a lyric. The "Spanish City" was an amusement arcade in Whitley Bay, by the way. Then there is the laid-back...
View Full Post »

The Stranglers: The Gospel According To The Men In Black - 1981

Image
This, according to  Hugh Cornwell , was the height of  The Stranglers ' creative output,  Jean-Jacques Burnel  feels similarly positive about it.  The public at the time did not, expecting some tub-thumping "punk" from a band who had long left that behind. This was the band's drug-induced album (heroin), it had to be said, but it is full of quirky oddities, and a myriad of rhythms that were very ahead of their time, both from drums and keyboards. Few of its songs tend to appear on any "Best Of The Stranglers" compilations, but it is definitely worthy of attention. I wouldn't say it was their best work, though, but then, I didn't write or perform it and they did.  Waltzinblack  is an atmospheric instrumental, with an (unsurprising) waltz beat and great bass line.  Just Like Nothing On Earth  has a big, thumping bassy beat and a weird, unnerving vocal from Hugh Cornwell, together with all sorts of electronic noises thrown in there. There are hi...
View Full Post »

Genesis: Selling England By The Pound - 1973

Image
  Genesis  decided to get all serious on this one, bemoaning the loss of traditional British folk culture to rampant Americanism and consumerism and produced an album that some seem to really love and others, particularly critics at the time of release, questioned.  For me, musically, I find bits of it interesting but there is a bit of a contrived, cynical, pseudo political wryness to it that grates somewhat. It is said to embrace folk in its sound but I feel Jethro Tull did that far more effectively and more to my taste.   Dancing With The Moonlit Knight  is an impressive mix of folk, prog changes of pace and typical Gabriel lyricism. The instrumentation on it is superb, although Gabriel's delivery is a bit overwrought at times. The fast bit in the middle is particularly strong. I find myself enjoying it a lot, I have to say, despite its obvious bombast. It has some subtle folky bits that I warm to.  I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)  was an unexp...
View Full Post »