A Conversation with Mary Chapin Carpenter – HuffPost 6.25.12
Mike Ragogna: Hello, Mary Chapin! How are you?
Mary Chapin Carpenter: Hi, how are you?
MR: I’m fine…you know, the polite answer. But honestly? I really haven’t been. But your new album Ashes And Roses has been helping me pull through something pretty traumatic, especially the song “What To Keep And What To Throw Away,” your survival checklist. But first, this album is very personal, and this has been a tough period for you.
MCC: It was. The last few years have not been easy. A number of things–changes–have taken place in my life, and among them was a real serious illness and then the end of my marriage, and my father passed away last October. Any of those things alone would have been really awful, but all of those things together really kind of made life very difficult to navigate. As a songwriter, it certainly was something that I didn’t think I could avoid, in terms of writing about my feelings and how I’ve been sort of making my way through the world since it’s all sort of changed in so many ways. So it seemed like a natural thing to write about, but daunting, as you can imagine.
MR: Oh, yeah. The lyrics on this project are so…”appropriate” isn’t a great word for them, but they really are. And as far as the melding of music with lyrics and presenting storylines or concepts in a fresh way, this went beyond.
MCC: Well, you’re very kind. I appreciate your words very much. The response that I’ve gotten since it came out last week has been just… I don’t know how to explain it, Michael. This record, as you have said–and I would not disagree–is a very personal record, and it’s as if people have responded in kind. It’s like they have spoken to me on deeply personal things as well as reviewers who I don’t know have almost seemed to respond to it in a personal way. I don’t know how to explain it. I’m being awkward right now.
MR: (laughs) No, it’s pretty clear. But I also want to throw this out there. I think it’s because you’ve touched people in ways that… it seems like people don’t even have, or make the time, to grieve appropriately.
MCC: Well, I don’t know if it’s time that they’re lacking, but I do think that, let’s face it, in our society, in our world, in our culture, it’s as if you get knocked down, you should get right back up.
MR: Perfectly said, Mary Chapin. Right.
MCC: One of the things that I’ve been talking to people about has been the reality of how long it takes to grieve something. I’ve had these experiences. I’m still having them, where you have good days and bad days, as you well know. You’re not having a good day, and you run into somebody, and they kind of give you that look where you know what it means, which is, it’s as if they’re saying to themselves, “Oh God, I wish she’d just get over this.”
MR: Oh, trust me, I know. I’ve lost a friend or two because of my…
MCC: …no, no. I think you discover that your world becomes much smaller, and the people who kind of fall away are the people who just don’t want to be around that kind of person who is experiencing that. They don’t show you quite overtly, but you can just sense that they’re just kind of rolling their eyes and sort of checking their watches.
MR: (laughs) Or they start texting.
MCC: You feel kind of judged because you haven’t been able to shake it off, and anyway, I don’t have an answer, really, to all of it, but I think the thing is that this record is personal, and as such, it’s not any different. We all go through the same things. We all, or rather, many of us, have experienced loss and divorce and betrayal and illness and so many of these things. They’re hard to talk about, and it’s very isolating. When you read a book that speaks to you about your experience, or you hear something that connects to you or resonates in some way… I guess what I’m saying is that what I’ve discovered in the last week since this record came out is people sort of wanting to talk about those things without turning it into one big therapy session. But there’s a certain element of that. (laughs)
MR: Hey, bring on the therapy! To me, it’s grieving and processing, and especially when you can’t find resolution due to a lack of communication or whatever is preventing closure, I believe true friends will forgive that you’re in crisis and help you through the process.
MCC: Well, I think we’re helped by…at least I know I am when I read a book or see a movie or experience some sort of artistic medium that allows me to feel less isolated, less alone in what I feel that I’m going through. It feels like a gift, so my radar is always up, always looking for something like that that’ll help make it a little easier.
MR: Absolutely. Mary Chapin, your first track, “Transcendental Reunion,” to me, is a song that’s an overview of the album… Well, I’ll stop there. Because you’re such a good writer, I’m afraid of not interpreting this properly. But for me, it’s about the journey we’re all on, and it contains an overview of what’s up ahead, like how you mention in the lyrics, “We’re travelers traveling, we’re gypsies together, we’re philosophers gathering…”
MCC: First of all, you can’t get it wrong, so don’t worry about that. Everybody responds in however personal way they do, so it’s not going to worry me at all if you have a different take on it, but I’ll tell you what I was thinking. First of all, there’s a reason why it’s the first song in the set, and that’s because I feel that it sets up the rest of the songs. It’s a metaphor for everything that comes after, flying alone. Right off the bat, it’s about this new way of being in the world from what I was, and you’re kind of suspended, and you’re not sure where you’re going, and you’re alone in the adventure and somehow people that you don’t even know, it’s as if their camaraderie, their fellowship, their elbow-to-elbow sense that you have with them makes you feel less alone in the world. Your suitcase, it’s as if it’s all the tools that you have for living. You don’t want to get lost along the way. You don’t want to be damaged. You don’t want to take the wrong exit or the wrong stairwell or whatever it is. You end up in this big room, and there are all these people, and you’re kind of like, “Where did all these people come from?” And you realize that that’s the world. You really are in the world, and you have to be there, and you have to accept it, and you have to just let your guard down and let things go. You get through it, and then there you are outside the gate, and all these people are going in all different directions, and it’s kind of like you’re finally on your own. It’s about realizing that that whole journey is from darkness to light, and it’s about having faith in yourself and hope in yourself and hope for the future. I could go on and on, but that’s basically the metaphor for the song.
MR: Beautiful. I wanted to ask you about recording this kind of album. How did you get through it with all of this depth? I mean, this is a lot of emotion to be packing into a CD.
MCC: It wasn’t easy, but there’s a point at which you just focus very hard, and I was in the studio with some really amazing musicians who I know quite well and know me, and we’ve worked together in the past, so it all felt very comfortable. The one thing I wanted to say is that this record is not as dark as we may be presenting it. It’s important to me to point out that it has a narrative arc, and about three quarters of the record the themes start to shift, and that’s because I believe that there is a sort of other side to all of this. You start coming out and discovering that. So I think it’s important to point that out.
MR: And to that point, let’s talk about “Soul Companion.” I believe that’s one of the songs we’re talking about, right?
MCC: Certainly.
MR: So the message of the recording… Well, I’m going to let you talk now. (laughs)
MCC: Well, it’s a song about believing, even though you have, in that moment, not necessarily any evidence to believe it, but just that somewhere out in the world, there exists someone who you can feel sort of completely known by and accepted by. That can be, whether platonic or romantic, a soul companion. It may just be too romantic for some people or idealist, but I believe that, and I always have, despite what I experienced in the last few years. I believe in all the things that are important about connection and the renewal that comes along with that.
MR: And speaking of “Soul Companion,” you have a friendly companion on there, James Taylor, with you. How did that all come about and what was it like recording with him?
MCC: Nowadays, with the technological advances that come along every day, you don’t have to be in the same room with someone, and he had just gotten back from Europe, so he was back home, and he has this beautiful studio in his barn. We were able to email the track to him, and he played on it, which was so generous of him, and he sang his parts. They’re so beautiful. The way it came about was that my manager was in touch with him and asked him, and he was so lovely to say yes. I was thrilled! I was beyond thrilled. I don’t even have words for it. So grateful and so happy that he felt able to connect to that song and wanted to do it.
MR: Yeah, and what’s great about the theme of the song “Soul Companion” is it’s like you’re saying, “…and here’s a soul companion, somebody who’s going to help uplift me.” You also have another great player on this album, or rather singer, player, producer, etc., Mac McAnally, who is also an awesome songwriter.
MCC: Great writer, great singer, great producer, great person. Great everything. Mac has been on many of my records, and we met years and years ago, and I just have nothing but the deepest admiration for him.
MR: Yeah, a real mensch.
MCC: Absolutely!
MR: I opened for him at The Peanut Gallery in Tampa, Florida, years ago, and we bonded over Henry Gross, the guy who sang the song “Shannon.”
MCC: (laughs) Oh yes! Well, Mac is also a repository of knowledge and music and history and humor. He’s just an amazing guy.
MR: Yup. Mary Chapin, other people have recorded your material over the years. You have many of your own hits and you’ve won Grammys. You have gold, platinum, multiplatinum albums, singles, all that. Looking back at your career at this point, from where you started and the ride that it’s been, what are your thoughts about the ride?
MCC: Well, I think you used the right word to describe it. At times, it does feel like an amazing ride. You know, Michael, I don’t know if I… I’m not very practiced in stepping back on a regular basis and sort of looking at things’ perspectives, but rather just trying to–at the risk of sounding kind of woo-woo–I just try to be present every day and just appreciate what I have and appreciate how hard the people I work with work on my behalf. This kind of work and this career is not something that you can really do by yourself. You need a lot of help, and I’m fortunate to work with some extraordinary people, and I think that’s really important because it can really turn your head, all the attention and the things that come with celebrity and fame and that sort of thing. It can be difficult, and even though television tends to portray it as something that everyone should have, I think it’s important to just be careful about who you work with and be appreciative of all the good things that come your way and to work hard and be honest and be a good person. Treat people right. Those are rules to live by no matter what your profession is.
MR: Well, you know, in your last song “Jericho,” you do have the line that sums it up wonderfully, “We are the places that we’ve been.”
MCC: Yes, we’re informed by all those things–all of our experiences–and they make us who we are, and it’s sort of common sense if you think about it. So everything I just said, I would repeat again.
MR: (laughs) Mary Chapin, I would love to ask you–and I ask everybody this question–what advice might you have for new artists these days?
MCC: Oh gosh. I’m not good at giving advice. (laughs) I imagine that nothing I could come up with would be original, and anything I would say probably would sound like some second rate commencement speech. Just the same things we were just talking about, you know? Whatever your profession–let’s just say you were choosing music–you have to be prepared for a lot of rejection. You have to be prepared for sort of just following your happiness as far as it can take you and trying not to care when people dismiss you or whatever. As long as something makes you happy and you feel passionate about it, then I think you have what you need to weather the storms. As far as anything more technical than that, I don’t think I can give advice. I would just say play all the music you can, write what’s in your heart, and, like we said, be a good person and treat other people right.
MR: Beautiful. When you listen to “Passionate Kisses,” the artist Mary Chapin Carpenter then and the artist now, what would you say is the major growth that’s happened for you between that period and now?
MCC: Well, gosh, it was a long time ago that I recorded that wonderful song by Lucinda Williams. I was so grateful that she gave me her blessing to do that. There’s been a lot of miles traveled between then and now and a gazillion shows and experiences. Through all of it, I’m so amazed and grateful that I’m still making records and touring and being able to do that. That’s the thing I’m most grateful for–that I have this job, if you call it that. I feel that it’s such a privilege. As far as having grown, I would hope that as a performer, I’ve gotten better at connecting with audiences, and as a songwriter, I just hope that I become a better writer, that I can address things and that my tools are well honed. You want to feel that there’s inspiration all around you, and you want to be able to take from it as freely as possible.
MR: The only other question I have is just how great is drummer Russ Kunkel?
MCC: How great is Russ Kunkel? The greatest, the greatest! My hero, my soul mate, my dear friend. I love Russ Kunkel with all of my heart and always will.
MR: Yeah, I think there should be a major push for a Russ Kunkel fan club.
MCC: I think there are probably many already.
MR: (laughs) Mary Chapin Carpenter, thank you very much for talking with us today.
MCC: Michael, it’s been a pleasure, and thank you for having me. I truly appreciate it.
Transcribed by Kyle Pongan