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The Age of Miracles Review"We've got two lives, one we're given, the other one we make," Mary Chapin Carpenter sang on Come On Come On, her 1992 breakthrough album. For her, that estimate was too conservative --- three years ago, a pulmonary embolism nearly killed her. Seasons of doctors followed, and medicine and rest. Now she's released The Age of Miracles, and it's not overstatement to suggest that it's a rebirth --- a third life for her.
Small complication: In each of her lives, there have been two Mary Chapin Carpenters, one a significant writer, one a singer who can deliver hits. Sometimes the brainiac Brown grad and the Nashville hit maker don't seem to meet. She writes from the intersection of emotion and reason; she can sing like she's fronting a bar band. It's those raucous, bawdy songs that get the most air play --- and will, forever. Mary Chapin Carpenter feels lucky. She'll take her chances. And you should see her at the Twist & Shout. Etc....
I'm fond of that Mary Chapin Carpenter, but I value the writer more. And as a writer, she's anything but Nashville. Carpenter is a master of the line that slips under the radar and pierces your heart, the thought you believed only you had, the painful truth that loses some of its pain for being shared. We have a mutual friend in Don Schlitz, who wrote "The Gambler" and a sheaf of other songs that will be played as long as there is music. Though they collaborated fifteen years ago, the memory is still sweet. "To think, I had the opportunity to sit across the table and make up a few songs with her," he says. "You can only imagine what a lifetime experience that was."
It may take a professional to appreciate just how special Mary Chapin Carpenter is: The singer-songwriters who can combine actual poetry in a framework that's not entirely foreign to Nashville make for a very short list. No wonder that town's most accomplished musicians line up to record with her --- especially now, when her always personal writing and singing have new dimensions. And then there's her fresh resolve. As she sings in "The Way I Feel," the last song on the CD, "When I'm out alone on the midnight highway/ There's nothing like both hands on the wheel/ Radio playing `I Won't Back Down'/ Baby, that's about the way I feel."
Those lines, twangy guitars and that unmistakable voice were echoing in my ears when the phone rang. And off we went....
Jesse Kornbluth: Three years as a patient --- that isn't an experience you slough off. How bad was it? And how are you now?
Mary Chapin Carpenter: Much better, thanks. It was a stunning turn of events, a hard time in every way. When everything you've ever thought about yourself is torpedoed...it's rough. A lot of the new music springs from that. To record those songs and now to tour, that feels celebratory.
JK: Let's clarify. By calling your CD "The Age of Miracles", is that a statement of faith: Mary Chapin Carpenter believes in miracles?
MCC: I didn't mean it in the religious sense, I'm allergic to that language. I could be predictable and say I thought it was a miracle that America elected Barack Obama; there were times during the inauguration that my heart was pounding. In the context of the song lyric, I'm saying that if you're lucky enough to believe that miracles exist, then they come --- because you make your own luck, your own beauty, your own joy. You can try to pull it from other sources, see it in the world, but really, it starts with you.
JK: I can see another reason for thinking that making your own joy is necessary. As I scan the songs on this CD, they're hardly the sound track for "Pollyanna." There are references to Buddhist monks in Burma, racial tension in Louisiana, Ernest Hemingway's wife, the Apollo moon landing --- this is smart music for smart, informed people, made by, forgive me, a serious person. Are you hooked by what's going on?
MCC: If you pay too much attention to the news, your heart would be broken in a thousand pieces every day. You couldn't function. So you have to balance....
JK: Let's talk about the transformation of news into art. The monks in Burma....
MCC: Watching their non-violent protest, barefoot in the rain, simply so the world could bear witness --- every day it went on, I was holding my breath. I couldn't believe so much courage. And I thought: if you connect to it, you can draw something of that courage into your own life.
JK: Mrs. Hemingway --- which one?
MCC: The first one, Hadley Richardson. I was reading a new edition of "A Movable Feast," and I thought about Hadley --- of Hemingway's wives, we know so little about her. Many people only recall that she lost the manuscript of his novel, but I knew there must be much more. So I found two out-of-print biographies and started writing the song....
JK: To someone who's listened to you consistently through the years, two things about "The Age of Miracles" come through strongly. One, that this is right up there with your best work. And two, which, given the music business, is somewhat in opposition to the first: I see no songs here --- except the last --- that shout: I am an obvious candidate for a hit. This is adult music, melodic and tasty, but also thoughtful and sometimes challenging.
MCC: Looking back twenty years, perhaps the greatest struggle throughout is the struggle to be authentic. In the '90s, when I was having great success and things were crazy as could be, there was pressure --- sometimes spoken, sometimes not --- not to do this or that. And I thought: who am I? The hardest time during those years was when I said "yes" to something that didn't feel authentic to me. But that is how you learn too. I had a wonderful career with Sony, but they needed to get records on the charts. Since I started recording for Rounder, that kind of pressure has disappeared.
JK: "Come On Come On" --- 7 hit singles, 4 million CDs sold. And that was just the start. When you think about how sizzling your career was in the early to mid-`90s, what comes up for you?
MCC: It's hard to describe. On the one hand, there was the fatigue, the people tugging at you, so many obligations --- and that doesn't even include getting up on stage. But then there was the travel around the world, the amazing people, audiences, extraordinary opportunities, your music being heard and connecting to people. It was an extraordinary experience. I feel blessed to have had two lives.
JK: You're getting the "Spirit of Americana" Free Speech in Music Award from the Newseum's First Amendment Center and the Americana Music Association. What for, exactly?
MCC: I've always thought of myself as someone who didn't edit herself, I've just tried to write about my heart and the world, I never saw myself as a formal advocate of free speech. So this award came out of the blue. I still wonder: Are they sure?
JK: This tour --- will you play the greater hits?
MCC: On acoustic dates, you can sometimes get some distance from them. but this summer, in the bigger places, with the full band, it's going to be great fun to crank it up at the end and fling them out there
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