Mary Chapin Carpenter
Mary Chapin Carpenter
Mary Chapin Carpenteris an American singer, songwriter and musician. Carpenter spent several years singing in Washington, D.C. clubs before signing in the late 1980s with Columbia Records, who marketed her as a country singer. Carpenter's first album, 1987's Hometown Girl, did not produce any singles, although 1989's State of the Heart and 1990's Shooting Straight in the Dark each produced four Top 20 hits on the Billboard country singles charts...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth21 February 1958
CountryUnited States of America
Sometimes you get there in spite of the route Losing track of your life and what it's about The road seems to know when to straighten right out... I could wonder if all of it led me to you I could show you the arrows and circles I drew I didn't have a map, it's the best I could do On the fly and on the run
Tonight, the moon came out, it was nearly full. Way down here on earth, I could feel it's pull. The weight of gravity or just the lure of life, Made me want to leave my only home tonight. I'm just wondering how we know where we belong Is it in the arc of the moon, leaving shadows on the lawn In the path of fireflies and a single bird at dawn Singing in between here and gone
In this world you've a soul for a compass And a heart for a pair of wings There's a star on the far horizon Rising bright in an azure sky For the rest of the time that you're given Why walk when you can fly?
You know, that single girl life and that sense of isolation - that doesn't leave you just like that. And that's what that song is about. I remember that, and that is imprinted on me, that sense.
Life is never a straight line - it's peaks and valleys. Why would you want to be the same person every day of your life?
It's like the code of living by yourself. People who are single know what I'm talking about. You eat standing up, reading the paper. Or you say to yourself, this isn't even cutting it, I'm taking a TV dinner and I'm getting in bed here.
It's a marvelous feeling when someone says 'I want to do this song of yours' because they've connected to it. That's what I'm after.
I went to college and I never allowed myself to think for an instant that I would have this chance to do this.
There's timing. And then there's also certain people at the record company who worked incredibly hard and were incredibly enthusiastic about what I was doing.
I grew up listening to everything, and when I got signed to a record deal out of Nashville, that was my introduction to what was happening in country music.
When I started out, it was this sense of, "Let's put out a record and see what happens and see where you go and see how you feel and where we can take it." That was a very different world back then.
In the late 80s, artists could be signed to labels and be nurtured. It wasn't, "We're going to give you one shot, and if you don't measure up, you're gone".
I feel that it's nothing if not an incredible privilege to be able to get up on stage and play for people, and I don't ever take it for granted.
I think topical songwriting is a real gift, and it's hard not to be pedantic and show up with the sledgehammer message.