Ms. Smarty Pants Know It All

What am I doing? The introduction’s here.

Track 10: Iceland
Simply breathtaking.

This is the song that deals most overtly with her near-death experience. An out of the blue pulmonary embolism forced her to cancel tour dates and drop active support of a new album. The on-the-move musician became grounded in a way that I imagine she hasn’t been since her early twenties. Who are you when your whole life changes?

I’m looking over the lyrics to decide what to sample here, and it’s seeming like if I try to start, I’m just going to end up transcribing the entire song. I’m sure part of my attachment to this song is related to my delayed realization of how close I was to losing her so suddenly and unexpectedly. That thought still chills me. But also, this song is just an amazing poem, set to music.

The madness created by an actual Iceland volcano is just a strange coincidence. I guess it’s just another wonder of our mysterious world.

Track 11: The Age of Miracles
As a history nerd, I study a lot of why and how things change. The problem with the study of history is that we always figure out that A led to B, which resulted in C. But as a kid, I remember the absolute wonder of 1989. This communist bloc country fell. Then this other one fell. Until…

On the evening of November 9, 1989, I was studying for a big test that was going to happen the next day. I got called to the TV to see people dancing on top of the Berlin Wall.

I remember that no one saw it coming. I remember that everyone, even all the experts on TV, were amazed, enthralled, and joyous. Part of the joy, I believe, came from the realization that they could still be surprised.

I remember being so thankful that this momentous event happened in my lifetime. I. Lived. History!

As a kid in the suburbs, I didn’t think anything exciting was ever going to happen to me. And that’s the sentiment that she expounds on here.

We’re in an environmental crisis. Natural disasters take out hundreds and thousands of us at a swoop. We still hate indiscriminately, irrationally, and violently.

But boy, you just never know when something AWESOME is going to happen.

But I woke to find monks pouring into the streets
Marching thousands strong into the rain
Now if courage comes dressed in red robes and bare feet
I will never be fearful again

Because there are people still trying out there. You just never know when that message in the ether is going to flare up and win.

As a history nerd, I’m just tickled pink that Mary Chapin Carpenter’s Ivy League degree is in American civilization, and that she’s someone capable of not only earning it but also capable of using it.

Track 12: The Way I Feel
We end the album in flight.

This one’s a hand-tapping head bob-er.

Cause when I’m all alone on a midnight highway
There’s nothing like two hands on the wheel
And the radio playing I Won’t Back Down
Baby that’s about the way I feel

Hey, if she’s ready to get back on the road, I’m ready to meet her.

All the way down 81
I’ve got some friends in Nashville
Atlanta it’s been way too long
By morning I’ll make Asheville

Did you know the unofficial MCC fan-clubbers (flamingos) flock down to Atlanta’s Chastain Park on every tour? There’s nothing quite like a lighted pink flamingo conga line during Down at the Twist and Shout and then group pictures backstage later. Since MCC and the band mates all play along, it’s a great time. You gotta join the mailing list to find out more.

I’m sad I won’t be able to join in this year, but I have my other tickets ready to go. Come on, tour!

Other posts in this series

• Introduction
• Tracks 1-3
• Tracks 4-6
• Tracks 7-9

Tags: Music by Ms. SP
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What am I doing? The introduction’s here.

Track 7: Mrs. Hemingway
Like 4 June 1989, this is a first-person narrator song. The inspiration this time is Hadley Hemingway, the first wife of Ernest Hemingway.

Here, the verses set the scene, but the chorus really brings through the spirit and heart of the remembrance. She’s recalling their earlier years together, with Paris as the backdrop. Chorus:

Living in Paris, in attics and garrets
Where the coal merchants climb every stair
The dance hall next door is filled with sailors and whores
And the music floats up through the air
There’s Sancerre and oysters, cathedrals and cloisters
And time with its unerring aim
For now we can say we were lucky most days
And throw a rose into the Seine

That’s gorgeous right? Come on, she rhymed Paris and garrets, oysters with cloisters, aim and Seine. These make me happy.

This one is sung in Mary Chapin Carpenter‘s classic confessional lower register. It has an exquisite musical arrangement that features an alluringly plaintive piano. It makes me close my eyes and luxuriate as it plays.

Track 8: I Have a Need for Solitude
And this is seriously why I feel such a kinship with her.

I have a need
For solitude
I’ll never be
Safe in crowded rooms
I like the sound
Of silence coming on
I come around
When everyone has gone

Amen.

I really have a need to be alone. If I don’t cocoon in my cave regularly, I feel like I start losing myself. That solitude lets me regenerate and become able to deal with the social world out there.

The bridge here is wonderful musically, but it also serves to let us know that there are special people allowed into her silence. The speaker is stating how she is, but she’s also explaining and hoping for understanding. She’s there. She’s yours. But if you don’t leave her alone when she needs it, she’ll go crazy and become even more “hard to love/Harder now to keep.”

Once again… Amen.

On the MCC SAT front, I had to look up verdant, which she uses in this song. Also, intrude and solitude form another great rhyming pair.

Track 9: What You Look For
I go back and forth on this song. I certainly enjoy it much of the time, but if I had to choose, I’d say that this is the weakest song of the album. There are great moments in the lyrics and a really singable chorus, but it is more generically rah-rah than the other offerings. It encourages the listener to live bravely and consciously. Be the change you want to see in the world.

Send it out into the Universe
A humble plea, a wish, a broken verse

It works with The Age of Miracles message of the album. If we continue to be open in the darkness, “[the sun] shines back.” I know that all sounds great, but this is a theme that she also revisits over multiple albums, and I’ve heard better.

Other posts in this series

• Introduction
• Tracks 1-3
• Tracks 4-6
• Tracks 10-12

Tags: Music by Ms. SP
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What am I doing? The introduction’s here.

Track 4: Holding Up The Sky
Once again, we’re longing for air. It’s a great way to explain this idea of wanting to fly instead of “being down here/Holding up the sky.” For a long-time fan like me, it’s also great that she references previous works that help shade the meaning to this song. The previous knowledge is not necessary, but it certainly makes me feel more clued in.

No Fear is one of my all time favorite Mary Chapin Carpenter songs that unfortunately was not done justice (in my opinion) when recorded by Terri Clark. Ugh, I just hit the play button on that song link, and the flat vowel sounds and jagged edges of the vocal performance just made me cringe all over again. There’s a weird lack of muscle and vigor in this recording.

I’ve heard MCC do this song and her round tones and smooth power really make huge differences on this song. Oh, how I wish she would record it too. There is absolutely no need to waste lyrics like

I want a road stretching out before me
I want the radio in my ear
I want a full tank of absolution
No fear

A full tank of absolution?! Come on! That line made me fall out of my chair and weep the first time I heard it.

In the context of this song, she writes:

I want to feel what the wind feels like
I want to go that high
And feel no fear instead of being down here
Holding up the sky

Between Here and Gone is a song off of Mary Chapin Carpenter‘s album of the same name. It’s a post-September 11 work so I think the “here and gone” becomes pretty obvious in that context.

And this song reinforces the dual-layer imagery by having the first-person narrator repeat “I found myself between two…” throughout. First, it’s places. Then it’s choices. And finally lifetimes.

I found myself between two lifetimes
A sunset and a dawn
I reached out and took the lifeline
Offered up between here and gone

Track 5: 4 June 1989
MCC wrote this after reading about Chen Guang in the NY Times. Many times, there is at least one song on each album that brings tears on almost every hearing, and this time, track 4 is my crying song. The Tiananmen Square experience of this person is just heartbreaking, and MCC has created such a haunting version of it.

There’s a dreamy, floating quality to the music that makes it a remembrance with just the right amounts of pathos, wistfulness, and hope. In the chorus, she creates a fine effect by breaking up the lush lyricism with the harsh, short syllables of “In the dirty stinking river.” It really puts the anger through.

Another thing that I absolutely love here is the evolution of an idea through the progression of the song. The first time the chorus goes by, it ends with

In the messages that find you then vanish in the ether
They vanish in the ether…

Wow, depressing.

But, the second time through, the boy soldier says

In the messages that found me, then vanished in the ether
In the messages that found me…

Ah, the students did make an impact. And their ideas were not confined within the borders of that square.

And finally,

In the messages that find us, then vanish in the ether
Oh the messages will find us, then vanish in the ether

Mary Chapin Carpenter has written an ode honoring failed revolutions. Eventually, movements succeed and the ones who are carrying the banner at that time are celebrated. But before that happens, there are attempts that fail and fail and fail. And the people who tried during those times are rarely remembered.

With that final line, however, MCC reminds us that messages do not die. They come and may move away, but if it reaches someone new, then the voices will surely be raised again.

Track 6: I Was A Bird
Yes, back to the ground/sky dichotomy. It’s a lovely song with a simpler presentation. Alison Krauss lends her angelic voice to it.

It may seem like this theme is overly explored on this album, but in my opinion, it really doesn’t come off that way. The songs and the way they are presented vary enough so that the motif is obvious but not repetitive.

Other posts in this series

• Introduction
• Tracks 1-3
• Tracks 7-9
• Tracks 10-12

Tags: Music by Ms. SP
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