Scooter Chronicles

Mary Chapin Carpenter - “Stones in the Road”

Tracks:

1. Why Walk When You Can Fly
2. House of Cards
3. Stones in the Road
4. A Keeper for Every Flame
5. Tender When I Want to Be
6. Shut Up and Kiss Me
7. The Last Word
8. The End of My Pirate Days
9. John Doe No. 24
10. Jubilee
11. Outside Looking In
12. Where Time Stands Still
13. This is Love

My former co-worker Garey is getting a lot of press from these favorite album posts. Not that he introduced me to this album, but at least to the artist. After hearing a lot, I bought a few of her CD’s, then bought “Stones in the Road” the week it was released.

Mary Chapin Carpenter was born in Princeton, New Jersey, but adopted Washington, DC as her hometown before her career took off. It is often asked what type of music she plays. Her serious reply is that she doesn’t know herself. It’s folk. It’s rock. It’s country. Her fame came through the country channels, though it was quoted by Time magazine critic Richard Corliss, “She didn’t go country; country went her.” The best way to describe her music is singer-songwriter in my opinion, but that still doesn’t describe the wide range of musical influence you can hear in the music while still retaining her own sound.

There are so many reasons that I like this album. The songs as a whole create a great atmosphere of artistic talent. Each song, even if I don’t like it as much as others, brings significance to the album.

One of the few standouts is “John Doe No. 24″, a ballad with only acoustic guitar and soprano saxophone. Carpenter’s ballads are very different then what you would expect. The biggest reason is the subject. There not “love song” ballads. “John Doe No. 24″ is accompanied in the liner notes by a newspaper clipping. It talks about the death of a deaf and blind man that was found alone on a street corner during 1945 in rural Illinois. Authorities never found any relatives and therefore his identity. But Carpenter tells his story, the one that he can’t tell himself, and it full with heart wrenching scenes. Obviously she has made it up, but it’s fabulous stuff.

When Carpenter rocks, she adds a good dose of humor from time to time, and on this album it is displayed in “Shut Up and Kiss Me”. It’s these songs that you usually hear more of the country twang show up. Another attribute of hers is taking something and showing the deep emotion and feelings involved, doing it rather poetically, yet still keeping it simple. A good example is some of the lyrics for “A Keeper For Every Flame” (”There was someone in his past / That he hasn’t gotten over yet / Each day is like the last / He just misses what he can’t forget / It’s just an empty space where something used to be / Now he guards the gate, but he’s lost the key / So no one enters, but no one leaves / There’s a keeper for every flame”)

Carpenter stands up for causes, tells funny or touching stories, sings about respect for women, sings about the ups and downs of life, and also shows her own humility. And she seems to do all of this on every album. “Stones in the Road” is no exception, and has long been a favorite of mine.