Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Such a podcast. My guest today is Mary Chapin Carpenter, who has a new album, Personal History. Mary Chapin, what was the inspiration for this album?
Boy, that's a giant first question. Well, let's see, there was not one subject or topic or emotion or inspiration for the whole album, but rather it was a look back at life, sort of trying to take stock of a life's work, with the idea of course that there's much more life to come. And it was about time and place and the importance of memory and all of those things.
Okay, So in today's world where you're your own record company, how do you decide to make a record? Do you say I want to make a record to come up with tunes, or do you know, write tunes, say it's an album, or you sit down and say I want to write an album.
I think I've always been pretty deliberate about things, and I've always also been a slow worker. And so if I look back at all of the records I've made, it seems to be on average about three or four
years between records. And it would be easy enough to say, oh, it's you know, each record is sort of a document of life, life between records, but I think this one stretches way the lens, if you will, of this one stretches way way back, and I can talk about some of the songs that really go as far back as being a teenager and the things that were going on in my life at that time. I always think of personal history when I read like a column in the
New Yorker or wherever I've seen that banner. It's specific, but at the same time, it's very wide open. And that title gave me this sense of possibility to just talk about so much, or rather write and sing about so much.
Okay, let's go a little bit more micro. You're cleaning the house, you're driving for groceries. Did you come up with the idle first? Or you know, how did this start?
I can be very specific with you about that. The title came along when we were in those first months of the pandemic and we were all staying inside of our homes, and I like, I think a lot of people were spending a lot of time thinking like, Oh Jesus Christ, what is going to happen? When will we be able to resume our lives? Again, when will I
feel like myself again? Because that time I can only speak for myself, but that time was so isolating and full of fear, and I was not experiencing loss personally, but I certainly knew a lot of people who were, and it was just so much to think about, so much to ponder, so much to worry about. And so I started writing this song that ended up being the titular song of the record, and the first song that I finished that felt like, ah, I think I'm beginning
something here. And the song was called what Did You Miss? And it was taking stock of the things that I missed in the present, while at the same time going backwards and remembering things from being a much younger person, and kind of riffing off of that. And at the end the last verse, I refer to all of these songs that have accumulated over the last thirty forty years as a personal history. And that was to me the obvious title.
Okay, let's talk about the pandemic. I had immune issues, so I was locked up longer than the average person. But you know, they shut the doors in the middle of March twenty twenty. We really didn't know what was going on, we paid close attention, came out the other side. I am positively shocked how things are different after the pandemic. Hey, I got older, which of course everybody does, but your perspective changes, and even lifestyle things in terms of people
wanting to go out to lunch whatever. It ended up being a bigger deal than I thought. So how did you experience.
How did I experience being sort of locked in?
No, I was going to ask the other question first. Now, looking back, what do you think about this time? Was it just a blip on the radar screen? Or do you find there's definitely a before and after and your perspective and feelings are different.
Oh, for me, it's definitely a before and after. I do remember thinking in those first six months or so that I would never ever again complain about being in a crowded airport. Other I felt so starved of company of people. Of And yet, and the thing about that that's kind of funny is that I think of myself as a hermit anyway. So I am not a very social person. I live in a very rural area. I
don't see a lot of people. And yet, and as I said to one of my sisters, when we started staying home, and my sisters and I we'd have a call with each other once or twice a month or week every other week, and one of my sisters says, how are you doing? How are you doing?
You know?
And this is she's talking, of course, to me, the hermit. And I couldn't help it. I said, I feel as if I've been training for this my entire life, you know. And I did. I felt like, oh, this is fine. I'm handling this. I'm handling this. But you know, that was a feeling of the moment, and it certainly didn't last for six months. And I don't I don't have a health issue like you did, Bob, to be very
careful with. But I personally did not feel safe going out and being and traveling and resuming work for a really long time. And even so now, I mean, it definitely affects me. I somebody sneezes twenty feet away and I'm just out of there. You know. It's just it's not something I take for granted.
So tell me about being a hermit.
Oh gosh, how long do you have?
I have plenty of time lay it out.
Yeah, I've always been I've always been a shy person. I've always been a quiet person, and I've always been sort of I think cursed on a certain level, with a stubborn loneliness that is just there even when I'm in a room full of people, and in a way, I just prefer It's like I'd rather be my own company. In that way. I have a few very close friends,
but we all live in different places. And the life that I have and have had for the last fifteen years or so, has allowed me to indulge that hermit life because I live, as I said, in a very rural area and it suits me. I don't know what it is about my personality that has led me to this, but here I am.
How much of it is social anxiety?
Oh gosh, probably a lot, I imagine. I mean, I can't break it down in percentages, but I'm sure that figures into it. I just I don't make small talk very easily. It's not that I, you know, abhor it. It's just I'm not good at it. And you know, days can go by where I don't talk to a single person except maybe the guy at the checkout stand, and sometimes it really gets to me, but other times it just as I said, it seems to suit me.
Okay, Let's say, for whatever reason, you're in a location and I come by and I say, oh, there's going to be this party. You're going to know a couple of people. There's going to be like thirty people there. Come on, let's go. What would you.
Say, Yeah, I'd say I'll come for ten minutes.
Okay, let's say I accept that. Will you actually show up?
Yes, I yes, I will. I won't bail on you. I'm not gonna I'm not going to be one of those people who bail at the last minute. And if I'm having a good time, I'll stay longer than ten minutes. But in general, I'll do the Irish good bye.
You know, I haven't heard that term that means what?
You've never heard that?
No, I haven't. That learns something every day?
Yes, well today you're going to learn that an Irish goodbye is you just you don't say goodbye to people. It's not that you're rude, it's just your slipping of what. You're slipping out. You're just disappearing. It's it's you're not having you're not making a big deal of leaving. You're just slipping out the door.
I sort of had to learn to not do the Irish goodbye. But what might happen at a party such that you would stay?
Oh my gosh, my car broke down? Maybe, I don't know.
That's pretty serious. I'm talking about what's happening inside the walls.
Of the Yeah, I know, I know. Well, I mean, you know, if my car's not working, I can't leave. But uh, what would have to happen? Well, I don't know. Just good conversation, lovely people, and not too late.
You know.
It's like I'm ready to go to sleep by eight o'clock at night.
So wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, you're early? Now? Have you always been early? Yes?
I have, well maybe not, maybe not as a teenager, but certainly now and for a long time, and living out where I live there, I live in a really beautiful place, and there is a lot to be gained from getting up to see the sunrise.
So okay, what is to be gained?
Beauty, peace, imagination, gratitude, quiet, just things that can be a very lovely way to start your day.
Okay. So the average day, you wake up at what.
Time, probably about five five point thirty okay, and.
Then what do you do other than observe the sun.
Coming up, I make the best cup of coffee on the planet, and after I have wait.
Wait wait wait, wait wait wait wait, don't wait wait wait wait wait. I don't happen to be a coffee drinker, but I'm aware of this side. Let's start.
I'm so sorry.
Let's start from the beginning. How do you literally make it?
Well, I have this coffee maker that grinds the beans. And I don't know if this means anything to you. So if you're not a coffee coffee drinker, you know, you might find this pretty boring. But it's just a really great coffee maker that kind of grinds the beans and creates a crema on top, the way you do with espresso, the way people make espresso. So it's just very rich, very delicious. I like half and half in my coffee, and it's just as my friend of mine says,
it's the best part of my day. And everything is all downhill from there.
Okay, it's the same machine that grinds the beans and also makes the cup of coffee, that's correct. And what's the name of that machine?
Oh shit, it's called Jura j U r A. And I bought. I bought this coffee maker from my mother a million years ago, and she said, I cannot be bothered with this. I just need these little you know, these cups that you yeah, yeah, she she just said, I can't be bothered with this. So I took it home and it's my favorite thing.
Assuming one where to buy it at retail? How expensive a unit.
Is this, Bob? I don't think, I want to say?
Okay. The only reason I ask, as I say, I have an interest is even though I don't drink coffee. Is of the standard machines, they say, the best one is the Mocha Master, which is not cheap.
Never heard of it? Oh, but that doesn't that doesn't mean anything.
Okay, the Moca Master, I forget what country and Europe. You know you're gonna you can get it for less than three hundred dollars. But you're spending that kind of money? Are you saying? The machine you have is one step beyond that?
Indeed, it's a made in Switzerland, I believe, and they're pricey. But again, as I said, I bought it for my mother, so I would have spent any amount of money on my mom because she was pretty cool.
Okay, in what area do you indulge yourself financially?
God, oh my god, that's a I don't know. I mean, I think I'm a kind of frugal person, so you know, uh, I don't know. Whatever it takes to keep my dog and cat healthy, you know, that can be very that can be very expensive. Probably the guitars that I play. I would indulge myself in those instruments because they're pretty wonderful things and they're the tools of my trade. So
I think that's worth worth it. Oh, I know. I so, a couple of summers ago, or a couple of years ago, I took the year off because I had terrible arthritis in my hand. So I took the year off to get my hand fixed, as I put it. And it was the year that the Olympics were on and all the sports and whatever. Anyway, I knew I was going to be spending a lot of time sitting on the sofa. So I went out and I bought a big television.
And I felt like such a Oh I felt like such a slob doing that, But now, oh my god, I love it so much.
So how much television do you watch? Now?
I only watch TV. So I'm weird this way. Hopefully maybe I'm not so weird if your listeners relate to this. During the day, I never turned the television on, and I rarely allow myself to to.
Sort of.
Retire to the sofa and read. It's like, I only watch television if it's in the evening, and I'll only read if it's in the evening. It's as if day is over now it's time to lose yourself in a show or a great book or whatever it is. But during the day, I feel like I have to be working and producing and walking my dog and doing admin and just taking care of things. It's like I just can't allow myself to watch television during the day or whatever. It would make me feel like such a slacker, which is
so judgy and stupid. But that's just the way I am.
Okay, if you go to bed at eight, when you're in control, and what time does the admin and the walking the door? What time is what's the cutoff time?
About four o'clock?
Okay, so four o'clock. Yeah, when would you decide to read or watch.
Television anytime after that?
No? No, when would it be reading as opposed to television or television as opposed to reading.
Just depends on my mood. It's a moody thing.
And when you read, what do you read? Oh?
I love novels, what I love history. My stack of books on my bedside table is just hot gets higher and higher. You know that term sundoku, it's a Japanese term.
I do not.
Okay, this is the second thing exactly.
Where it'll be coming three, So I'm waiting for the third.
Okay, we'll get to it. Sundoku is a term loosely translated, it's it's about abundance of books that you may never get to. But it's the act of collecting them that is the point. And so it's okay if you never get to them, but it's it's it's the act of collecting books that you may or may not read.
Okay, I understand the concept. Where did you encounter the.
Word waash know on amaiwa Meddi chip and Carpenter, I don't. That's me saying my name is Mary Chapin Carpenter and Japanese. When I was a kid, we lived over in Japan for a few years because of my father's jow But
I don't think I learned it there. I think I learned it years ago, just by accident because someone I knew, or people would remark, on, Jesus Christ, how many books do you have that you're just sitting on, you know, and someone would have enlightened me as to that there's an actual term for that.
So this is not a test, because I hate when people confront me this way. Yeah, within the last ten years, can you name a couple of books that had an impact that you thought were great for whatever reason? Yeah?
Anything by Elizabeth Strout.
Oh, those are all good, each one of them.
She's so great and I love and I can just detour for a second. It's like a guiding kind of declaration for me. There's this She has a novel called My Name is Lucy Burton, and the narrator in that book talks about how she takes she's taking a creative writing course, and the instructor says to her, then, I'm paraphrasing, of course, because I can't remember exactly. But she hands in an assignment or whatever or gets stuck on her her writing assignment, and the instructor says, don't worry about
the story. We all have just one story. And we tell it, Yes, we tell it many different ways. And I remember in the moment that I was in bed reading that line and I said out loud like, oh, oh, that's what the songs are. It's like, that's it, that was it, and that I know I'm reaching, but but I'm not really back to the very first thing we were talking about about, you know, the songs and personal history and what does it come from. That really in that whole thought informed to me the idea that this
record was like songs as memoir. It's like all these different lives that we that we inhabit over the course of our one life, but we tell them. We tell these stories so many different ways. And that moment in my name is Lucy Barton, to me, it was sort of like a bingo moment. It just was like, ah, that that is exactly how I feel. So anyway, I digress anything by Elizabeth Strout, anything by Lauren Growth, anything by Ian McEwan, Oh my gosh. And then there's you know, oh,
there's just a lot. There's a lot.
You know. I keep bringing this up with people. Did you read Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow?
I'm the only person probably who hasn't, but it's been recommended to me so many times. Really again, yeah, absolutely, And so I'm sort of slightly ashamed because.
Now I feel like, you know, I don't feel like such an individual since everybody's recommending it. Yeah, it does. It sound like that's the only book I ever read. But let's just flip it. If you're watching television, what are you watching on television?
Oh god, that's a whole nother thing that really does. That decision is truly informed by mood. Like you know, I don't know about you, but there are days or evenings I should say when I just I just feel blank, and I don't want to have to work too hard to just chill out, and so I'll watch like stupid shit, you know, just like like a home show on HGTV. But right now, for example, it's very exciting after four o'clock these evenings because I'm watching The American Revolution by
Ken Burns. So that's very rich and broad and you have to pay very close attention because there's so much that they're telling you. So that's not for a blank night, that's for an engaged night. But I love it. It's like I love having something to look forward to in the queue.
Are you a Ken Burns person? And have you watched jazz and baseball and all this stuff?
No? Not not a not a you know, a true follower. I mean I'm cherry pick.
And how about Netflix series stuff like that? Do you watch any of that.
If it's British crime dramas?
Yes? Okay, So what's what's the best British crime drama?
Line of Duty?
Line of Duty's phenomenal, phenomenal.
Okay, so you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, okay, have you seen Blue Lights?
Of course I haven't seen the new season, but I've seen Blue.
I haven't either. I'm It's like, I'm way, I've got it in my queue and I'm waiting. Rather, I should say, I'm hoarding.
What's your name? How come I Sarah Lancasher?
What's yes, Sarah Lancash? What's Sally? Uh? The creator of right Jesus Sally? I can't like do my thing, but she's the writer of like Happy.
Valley, Happy Valley. That's what I was saying. Oh yeah, the latest season of Happy Valley wasn't good, but the ones before that I thought were the best.
So in other words, the one where he meets his end. You didn't think that was good? Okay, Well I don't think. I don't think I disagree with you about that. I mean the earlier seasons they were remarkable, unbelieving.
That was my number. That was my tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow of television.
I hear you, I hear you.
And what about broad Church? You watch broad Church?
Loved broad Church, loved it. I just think British TV in general is so much better than Americans. It's like, I don't even remember the last time I got stuck in to some sort of US mystery series or crime drummer. It's like I just don't even go there anymore. It's like I I wait for the good British shows. You know?
How about you know they say the Danes in the Israelis make the best TV. So if you watched any of the Scandinavian noir and.
That stuff, I what was the one with Kenneth Brawna, didn't he sort of adapt a Danish drama for.
Yeah, but I can't remember what it is. Yeah?
I thought that was pretty good. But in general, I don't think I have followed the Danes or Israeli ad adaptation.
Well, when the next, you know, lockdown comes, you got a lot to look forward to.
Oh Jesus, let's hope not.
Okay. So also on the new album, I find a through line of reflection on aging. Is that something you're thinking about?
Absolutely, that's, you know, front and center on this record as a theme and a connecting thread. It was very deliberate actually for the very last song on the record, which is.
Which is probably the best song other than one of You and Your Dog. Those two are the best songs on the record, but.
Continue, well, appreciate your opinion.
Probably don't agree, but that's my opinion.
No, I'm not in a position at all to tell to say to anyone, oh, this is the best song or it's like And also I can't quite you know, I can't sort of divide it up that way. It's like, to me, it's a it's a whole it's a it's a whole, complete thing. If one of those songs fell out, I would feel like there's a hole in the midst of this, you know, painting whatever. But anyway, coda, you know, to me, it speaks absolutely about the idea of growing
older and how to sort of navigate that. And and then in the end, it's sort of like this, this moment of sort of facing yourself and just saying it's about gratitude for what you have. But to me, it was very important that that song be open ended. And it's like it's not saying it's over, it's done, it's life is finished, but rather there is more to come. But this is an acknowledgment of where I am right now in my life and and I'm incredibly grateful for it.
Well, people from the baby boomer era, of which both of us are members, don't talk about aging. Everybody I know seems to feel like they're going to live forever.
Why do you think that is? Why don't Why do you think it is that? Because that's one of the things I did want to talk about on this record. And it's as if but it's like for me, it leads into a lot of other sort of connected conversations about like agism in the music business and agism in life, and it's just it's like there's it's as if people are afraid to talk about it or it's a taboo or something like that. I don't, well, I think.
Everything you're seeing is true. You know, growing up, our parents did not want to be kids. There were definitely the adults in the room, not that they couldn't be a reverend. Everybody today, you know, not literally everybody, but a lot of people. They're working out, they're wearing kids clothes. They don't want to admit that they're roled, even though I mean one of the.
Older they're older, right, but.
The amazing thing about being two amazing thing is one you're happier and b you have perspective. They would rather keep their heads in the sands. Like most people I know, they say, I want to die in my sleep. I don't want to die in my sleep. I want to be like Steve Jeff. I want to see it coming. I want to know this is the end.
Really, oh, very see I fear that in a profound way. It's like, I'm very aware of this in myself. Living in suspense, if you will, being in suspense, some would say, oh, that means not being in control, or however you want to analyze it, but being in suspense, not knowing what's coming, or rather if you had an illness, shall we say that, Like you say you want to see it coming, right, I think I don't think I'm cut out for that, I want to be unaware that I'm nearly gone or something.
I think I would grieve too hard. I think I would grieve terribly, and I don't want to go through that.
Let's go the other way. You can live another ten minutes, you could live another thirty years. Okay, Right, If let's just say we're talking, you died a year from now, would you feel ripped off? And we say, well, that a pretty good life, you know that's the end.
I don't think i'd feel ripped off. I feel very.
Well.
Again. There's so many things to this conversation. The first thing I would say is, as far as this record goes, there's no way I could have written this record thirty years ago, or in my thirties, in my forties, in my fifties. This is a work that is completely of who I am now. So I have a real appreciation for the passage of time and what it has given me.
The thing about not wanting to know that there's like the end is coming next year or whatever, it's just I think I would just I would miss It's like I just all I would. I think I would be obsessed with what I was going to miss, even though as people say, oh, well you're not alive to miss anything, but well, my brain doesn't work.
I think some of this is a function of aging. Right thirty, everybody's freaked out about is no big deal? Forty fund me up? Pretty good, fifty, no big deal? Hits sixty really weird because I felt like I'd seen the trick. It's like when you're within a grocery store and your little kid. I want this. I want that. They're all that I've to going. If something's good, I'll find out about it. In addition, a lot of this
is hype when you turn seventy. This is something we're seeing in America at large with these political figures trend sevy. It's just you're aware the end is somewhere, and you're aware that nobody matters, so you can theoretically evaluate the path forward, which I find most people do not. And then you have these congress people you know in their seventies and eighties refuse to retire, and especially with all the technological developments of the past thirty years, they're completely
out of touch. I mean, if you're somebody in your twenties or thirties, you're not even speaking the same language, and they're very pompously saying we know, okay, So on some level I feel sorry for them because they're so busy doing I'll use it a music business example. I know these guys who have this magazine, they've been doing the same thing for forty years. The only thing that is change is the name of the acts. How do you do that? I mean, there's a lot of money involved,
but it's like it be brain dead. You know. It's kind of like talking to Kenny Chestney and he says, you know, yeah, I had a big hit with you know, she's in love with my tractor whatever the hell of the song is, says, thank god I didn't continue to write that song. You know that I could grow, whereas a lot of people they do the same thing. I just don't know how they do it. And the same thing with aging, and you know, I thought it was great that you addressed it. But it's illegal. I mean,
it's really just a riffing here. But it's like mostly the male acts they get plastic surgery to look young. The audience looks old, in some cases terrible, and nobody under the age of forty or fifty even cares or goes but they die there here they get plastics or they're like, who you fooling?
Yeah, I think also, I mean, I remember this so well. It was years and years and years ago. I was signed as I was on Sony and I'd had a I had had a big song, and it was I was in the midst of making my next record, and the A and R gentleman called me up, and I think they were sort of like, where is where's the record? We're waiting for it, you know, And I said, I'm
working on it. And he said the song that I the so called hit that i'd had was a song called down at the Twist and Shout and he he said, and I do quote exactly. He said, well, don't you have another twist and shout and I and I just stopped and I just said, why would I want to do the same thing over and over again? And it was like he didn't, he didn't give a shit. He just wanted to know what was coming down the pipeline so he could figure out what his bonus was going
to be or something. I mean, it was just, you know, it was the enemy of creativity.
There you go, Well, let's flip it over. You were part of the major label system and had great success, and there were two things going on at the same time. You have an arc of a career but also changes in the business. So when you add success in the nineties, assuming you had success, I mean anybody, everybody in that world would know who you are, know what was going on, whereas today most of the hit acts, people are unaware
of their music. Maybe they know their name. It's like for all that talk about Taylor Swift, I go place, people can't name two songs, or if you hit young people, they can't sing them. Whereas it used to be if it was a hit, everybody knew it. So in this world you're in total control because you can make the music you want whatever. But does it frustrate you that it's harder to reach a mass audience.
I don't think frustration is the is the word I would use. It's it's a consequence of I mean that just the fire hose of of of of content, you know, music, content, whatever. It's just it's like you put a record out on a Friday and it's forgotten by Monday. If you're lucky, right, you know, if even if it even made it through the weekend, right, and there are some exceptions to that, but generally I think that's the way it is now, right, And you know, it's it's like, I wouldn't call it frustrating.
Well maybe it would. Yeah, maybe i'd say it's frustrating. But on the other hand, there's a part of me that feels really strongly about well, no one is entitled to It's like, you know, it can't. It's not like I deserve to be heard by more people or something. It's like, it's just that's just not the way it works. But it's just it is different from when I started out. But also the fact that I had any kind of no Arriet or whatever to me is still a complete shock. So I don't know.
Well, in addition to this arc of technology, the arc of a career is you've been to the mountaintop. There are a few exceptions, the Eagles, Paul McCartney, even whatever, But the other acts been into the mountaintop. Audience decreases to some point. You know, they're not telling as many tickets, people are not listening to the music as much. How does one metabolize or coope with that?
Well, first of all, it would be helpful if the people that you are fortunate enough to spend some time talking to in the journalists, the people who are writing about X new record or whatever it is. I'm still thinking about this. It was someone I spoke with last summer about the record, and he asked me, why are you still doing this? I was astonished by that question, first of all, just and I once I stopped laughing and sort of how I had a lot of responses. I felt like it was rude. I felt like it
was kind of thoughtless and clueless. And and then I, you know, moved into the next phase, which was not to in any way suggest that I'm on the same level as this person. But if he was talking to Bruce Springsteen, would he say, Bruce, why are you still doing this?
You know?
It's just again it just felt like what And so the only answer I had for him really was I didn't realize there was like a deadline I had met and it was touched my shelf life was over whatever. I I intend to keep doing this as long as I have something to say. Art is not, you know, being a songwriter, being an artist in this world that we inhabit, it's not you know. I don't want to get all pompous about it. But it's not a nine to five job that I'm going to eventually, you know,
collect retirement for It's just it's a calling. It's something I feel like I need to do, and I've always felt that way about it, whether I had an audience or not. I'm deeply grateful and fortunate that I did find an audience and that I still have one. But it's like again, and that to me, is part of that sort of agism that exists, and it's not as you know, to me thinking about it. The gentleman who asked me that question, he's a much younger person and than I am, and you know, he's just come up
in a different world, and I don't know. I'm still sort of kind of shaking my head about it.
Okay. You know, I don't want to defend any music journalists for numerous reasons. However, just to state facts, there are a lot of acts from the so called classic rock era who was refused to make new music because they believe no one's going to hear it. Now. Obviously we can go deeper and analyze who they are, what their motivations, artistic whatever, But I'm leading into The next question is when they do put out music, there's the issue of how much new music they can play in
a show. Is that something you think about.
It's something I feel when I put a set list together, when it's time to tour a new record whatever, I'm very I try to be very thoughtful about how much new music I inject into the set list. Where to find the balance, I mean, you know, and again it also depends on how long has the record been out, how have people even had a chance to digest it, you know. I think that's that's important as well. So yeah,
I just feel like I'm really thoughtful about it. I don't have any desire to play the record front to back in a set. If anything, I want to be able to just show that there are connecting threads between this new music and what you're familiar with prior. You know, it's like it's all coming from me, and it's you know, it's just very it's just very clear to me that it's all part of the whole thing.
Well, I guess let's assume you're doing a show by yourself. You may have side musicians, but you're not working with the numerous people you do work with to what degree every night is different. It's just like legitimate theater. They do the same lines, but every night is different. To what degree are you conscious of the audience in trying to win them over to your side? You know?
I think when I was a much younger artist, I may have felt that way upon walking on stage, like I'm on a mission here, I want to win these people over. I feel like after all these years since then, now maybe I'm wrong to make this assumption, but I feel like it's much less about that and more just this appreciation and recognition of it's a community inside this space. We're all together here. People are here because they want to be as opposed to having their arms crossed sort
of indicating show me. It's like they know what they're here for. Because I've been around long enough, I guess you know that it's not a mystery to them. They're not being introduced to someone new. So I think it's a you know, kind of a logical thing to feel like I want to I want to be here with everyone here in this audience, and I want us all to feel connected. That's that's to me what I feel. What I I'm deeply grateful for every every time I step on stage.
Let's go back to the agism. There's absolutely agism in the music business, and we could talk about that a lot, but to what deg we You experience agism in your non music business life.
When people talk to you in such a way that they think you're hard of hearing, right, or they call you honey, maybe honey like they're talking to their nana, you know. Yeah, just things like that. You know, It's just you just detect things, you know, and sometimes it's like and I'll just sometimes walk away going what the fuck.
Right? It's like, what right? Right? Right?
What the fuck? What do I look? Do I look like I'm eighty five years old or something. I know a lot of eighty five year old women and they're rock stars.
You know.
But again, I like to with the exception of some people, I like to believe the best about people, and I think that when I do get the sort of Nana treatment, it's just people are just wanting to be helpful and compassionate and and they're trying to be thoughtful. So you know, I'm not going to punch anybody out.
Well, that's an interesting thought. I remember I was in the mountains and I didn't take a bus, you had to buy it. I was talking to the guy and I'm trying to figure out which bus and where it's going. Figure goes, Okay, the senior.
Rate is Jesus.
It's like, you know, it's like, oh yeah, all I did was ask you these questions. But as a woman in society, we hear all of this attention based on looks. What has your experience been with ageism as.
A woman in the music business and in life?
Yeah, well mostly in life in life music business.
Well, for example, my neighbor, one of my neighbors, years ago, we were taking a walk. She this beautiful artist, and she had beautiful, thick colored gray hair, just like the most beautiful gray hair you've ever seen in your life, Like I would kill for that hair. And her name was Elsa, and she one day we're just talking about and I must we're talking about agism. We encounter et cetera. And she pointed to her hair and she said, the minute my hair became this, I became invisible in life.
And it broke my heart. And that she said that. I mean, she's just the coolest lady. She's so she's a total super nova. And again it just I actually would. During the summer when I was on tour, I was sort of riffing about this when I was introducing girl and her dog and talking about how I know so many women who older women who have said to me at so many different times. You know, I turned six and I became invisible, and I'm like, what the fuck
does that mean? It's like, what are you talking about? And then slowly but surely it started to happen to me in those ways, and I got it, I understood, and it was both dreadful and hilarious.
You know.
It's like you just you sort of realize, well, I've reached that place where the people have been telling me about all this time and I didn't believe it, but here I am, you know, And you know, I just don't want to be I don't want to be cranky about it all the time and say and not talk about anything else. But it really does inform so much in life and in art, you know, and this record certainly testifies to that.
Okay, would you ever contemplate any because medic procedures.
No, And I'll tell you why.
I knew that was a bad ask. No.
So when we were talking about impending death and illnesses and things like that. I didn't mention, but years ago I suffered a pulmonary embolism and I came very close to not being here, and it was a very traumatic experience. And once you have a blood clot, you can be you're at risk further risk for getting another one. And my feeling about elective procedures is I don't want to do anything that would put me in at risk for having another blood cloth. So there you go.
How did you realize that you had a blood clock?
I couldn't breathe a little bit slower?
Was it one event or in retrospect, had it been building? And where was it when you have it.
Had been building? I'll tell you exactly what happened. I had been on Well, actually I don't know if I want to tell you exactly what happened.
Uh. Well, now I'm more interested in why you don't want to tell me.
I don't have to tell me because it's like I'm just kind of opening my health file to you, and I don't know if I want to do that to the wider world.
Well, you know, let just to stop. I mean, you know, I talk about health issues all the time do it. Yes, maybe I've had more than the average person. Everywhere I go now people ask me about they health. I have found. The only difference is the other people don't talk about it. Everybody's got something that's right. And it's like, I have this macular degeneration, now whatever, and her all of a sudden he reveals, Oh, this is much worse. He just never told you. Okay, I find a ton of that shit.
I'm not listen. You don't have to tell me. Yeah, but that if people were only more on it, it's part of that image we're talking about where you can't embrace aging. You know, it's like I was under the illusic something stupid. Maybe my parents were. You know, you're one hundred percent together and you die. That is not the way it lays out, that's right. Unless you die before your time, there's a deterioration and emotionally very difficult.
Yes, yes, I am in that movie right now, and I understand what you're saying, and I agree with you. And it's really hard, it's really really hard, Okay, just to satisfy your curiosity. I had so I had this blood clot and the reason I got it, we believe is because I have always suffered from migrain headaches and I was taking this medication that actually it was a birth control pills that would What I understand about it was that it was, uh it would I wouldn't get
so much estrogen that would create the headaches. But the birth control pills they now have a black box warning on them, but at the time that I was taking them, they did not. But they were the cause of this blood clot and yeah, it was pretty terrifying. It was horrible.
Actually, so you have the surgery, they you know, put a clip usually whatever, blah blah blah. Have you had any after effects of that problem in resulting surgery?
I mentally it was like I was afraid too, so that you know, you're put on blood centers for a period of time and then you weaned off of that. I remember marching into my doctor's office nearly nearly two years after the event saying and he said, I think it's time for us to start tapering off the blood thinners and everything. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, don't ask me to get on a plane.
I can't.
I can't, I can't, I can't. You know, just like all these sort of things that were terrifying to me, like that they if I got on a plane and if I didn't move around enough, then I'd get another blood clot. If I got off the blood thinners, I'm going to get another blood clot, you know, just like you know my doctor. He was amazing and so kind and compassionate and helpful. But fear is fear, and it's really hard to deal with. But I eventually got through it.
Well. When people have these issues, frequently they go to a therapist. Have you been to a therapist?
Have I been to a therapist? My middle name is therapy, no, my paid friend. Yes, I've been to a number of therapists over the years, and they're all incredibly patient.
Have you found it helpful?
Absolutely? Absolutely. I remember one of one thing that one of my therapists said when I was electing to as, I said, fly solo for a while, and he said, you know, just give me a call when you're ready to come back, if you're ever ready to come back, And I said, well, I hope I don't have to, and he was like, you know what. I have a number of patients who have said to me that they consider it a privilege to be able to sit and talk with someone when they need to. It's not a
beginning and an end. It's an ongoing journey through life. And I thought that was wonderful and it changed how I thought about the whole process. And yeah, so I consider myself so fortunate that I can afford it, and that I can do it, and that I have such great, great people to be my paid friends.
Paid friends got a derogatory tone, though.
No, I mean it with affection and humor.
Okay, you mentioned birth control pills. You don't have children. Was that a choice? Do you have any regret? Is this exactly what you wanted.
By the time I got married for the first and only time, I was little, I had aged out of that particular situation. So it was basically I would have loved to have had a family, had kids, but I was I just you know, I just never was in a place in my life where I could make sense of how to do it by myself. So yeah, it just didn't happen. It just wasn't in the cards for me. I would have loved it if it had beened.
Well, there's a reference to put a benignly to an X in one of the songs and essentially saying they're not trustworthy A was that your personal experience?
I need to know what the song is, but I need to know what the song is.
I'd have to go through all the lyrics. There's a guy there I could do it. And it was essentially.
I mean, there's one song called Bitter Ender, which is really just it's a portrait of me being one of those people. It's like, oh my god, why am I still hanging around here? The writing is on the wall. I need to leave this relationship or I need to end this or whatever, and I'm just always hanging on for dear life, like thinking, oh, it's going to fix itself, it's going to be better, it's going to be okay. And so that's the whole song. So I don't know.
Yeah, but that's a different perspective. There's another one. Truth is I've always gone down with the ship. But that is different from the behavior of the person. The signs you're willing to miss when you're cut to the quick. Let me let me you were married once, right, you say you live alone in the middle of nowhere and you were somewhat of a harmit. Yeah, so However, contrasting that you have this very public life and you do
travel a certain amount. So what about romance at this point in your life.
I'm open to it if it were to happen, but I'm also really con I'm really comfortable and content with the life that I have created for myself. You know, I just, first of all, I don't feel like I ever need to get married again. I didn't really want to get married in the first place. But the person that I ended up getting married to just for a lot of different reasons, he wanted it to be legal whatever.
But I don't. I don't feel that way now for sure. Yeah, I just I'm I'm I'm sound like something out of a Jane Austen novel. But I'm quite content.
You know, let's look at a different way. You were married. Yeah, but you also say you're a hermit, and this has been something your whole life. You know, there are people who are serial monogamous. They're always in a relationship. There's somebody in a book right now that I'm reading didn't have a relationship till she was twenty four, and that was the only relationship you ever had. We're on the continuum. Do you lie.
Gosh, you know, I just I feel like I just never met the right person. You know, I dated lots of different people and just not throwing shade at them, but it's just I was. It's like I remember talking to my therapist saying, I don't think I have relationship DNA in me. I just didn't think I you know, I just I don't know. And it's just like now when I think of what I might have to do to accommodate like a relationship, like I think I have always said actually and I mean it. I say it humorously,
but you know, there are no jokes, doctor Freud. The idea that, to me, the perfect relationship at this point in my life would be somebody who lives like down the road, you know, and we can meet up when we want to. But it's like I want my own space, I want my own home, I want my place, and I don't want to share it.
But there are a lot of people who actually live that, some even married. I think it's fabulous, But I if you had met the perfect person, what would they have looked like?
Really?
Hmm?
I think they'd be tall.
Well, I wasn't talking physically.
But okay, Okay, what were you talking about.
Well, when you're talking about you've never met somebody, I think of the clique as opposed to what this spark, right.
The spark. Yeah, yeah, they'd have to be really funny. That's a huge spark. It's just like humor. That's the greatest. That's the most seductive thing in the world. Is someone
who makes you laugh, like genuine belly aching laugh. You know, there's nothing more seductive to me about it than that someone who's thoughtful and curious, is interested in in what you do, but not obsequious about it, you know, not like they're They would be proud of you and what you've accomplished in your life, but they're not interested in piggybacking on top of it.
You know.
They're just they have their own life and their own interests and their own passions. They like to read, they like to listen to choral music as much as I do.
Wow, how'd you get into choral music? Oh?
My god, I don't know. My mom, I guess she would blast. It's not choral music, but she would blast Texico Opera Theater on Saturday afternoons out of the met
every Saturday at two o'clock blasting in the house. But she also just you know, I don't know, I just always loved, like the last year that she was alive, myself and my pals Don Dixon and Marty Jones, and we went over to Cambridge in the UK and stood in line for nine hours to get tickets for the Christmas Eve served at King's College, Cambridge, where you will hear the most beautiful choral music you've ever heard in your life, and we did that because it's Nirvana and
my mom it was her last year that she was like and it's like, you're not supposed to use your phone in the chapel, but I was like taking pictures of the stained glass windows and sending them, texting them to my mom in real time. So she was like there with me, and we had the program so she
knew the songs which were coming. And then when the service was over, raced back to the hotel, called Mom on the phone and we went through the whole thing together, the whole service, and it was the best time of my life. And I heard all these great, incredible pieces of music, and to this day, choral music is just my favorite thing in my life. It's just my favorite thing. And I don't know why, but she gave.
That to me, and would you play it in the house.
Twenty four to seven? I turned it off so I could do this interview with you.
That's definitive. Let's jump backwards. How'd you end up going to Brown? God?
Truthfully, yeah, it was the closest college that I applied to my home in DC with my parents when I was in high school, when it was time to apply to colleges, I didn't. I was the third out of four kids. By the time it was my turn. My parents were like, we're not taking you to go look at colleges. You figure it.
Out, you know.
I was just like, oh God, And I just knew that I wanted to be able to go home whenever I wanted, as opposed to just on Thanksgiving or spring break because from you know, if it was too far away. So I applied to all these school in California, school in Vermont, school in Colorado, and I School and to Brown, and I got into all of them. And Brown was the closest one to DC. So that's the one I went to.
Okay, at some point in this narrative, and I can't tell you when I believe it's when you're there. Brown is known for this very innovative academic program, which when I applied to college a few years before you, they did not have it. No one applied to Brown, and then everybody wanted to go to Brown. Was that part of the attraction.
No, I mean I think they called it sort of the open curriculum or something like that like that, I don't know, Like, in other words, they didn't require you to have, I don't know, a certain amount of credit, can.
Try to make your own major or something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you could make it up. No, that was not the reason, because I don't think I even knew what that was the time. Honestly, I didn't know.
Okay, you went. How was the experience?
Well, I loved being in classrooms. I got a great education I did. I was an American civilization major, which at the time was again a very broad palette of things, which just allowed me to indulge myself, like you know, literature courses and sociology courses and art history and you know whatever.
You know.
I just I just loved being in the classroom.
Well, you know, college is inherently social. First, you're living in the dorm. I don't know how long you lived in the dorm. Were your hermit tendencies and evidence there or were they not?
The I was, you know, I've just always been it's hard to make friends, I think, and I've just always been that way, and I'm shy, and I didn't like to go to parties, and well no, I think I did like to go to parties, but I just didn't know. I just didn't know a lot of people. So after so I was in a dorm just for one year, and then after that, let the remaining three years I lived in a group house with a rotating cast of friends.
Was it a rotating cast or was it a rotating cast of friends?
It was a rotating cast and mostly friends. Well, I mean there was a few a few strangers that I did not know.
And get what I'm trying to say is you're living in a group house. We're all going to college, got the common purpose, but everybody's got a different schedule. Yes, so are you sitting in the living room bullshitting or is everybody hey, nice to see I'm going back to my room and studying. I'm going out to class.
It was both, It was both, and we I think we were kind of mature in this way where we everybody took a night. It was a big house. Everybody would pick a night and would cook for that night. So you'd cook for everybody. So you had like one night a week where you had to you were responsible for dinner. But it gave us all a reason to be together. It's kind of a family thing, you know, And that was pretty civilized, I think.
So do you know how to cook?
I love to cook. And the what I remember quite fondly from my night to cook at college was the Moose Would Cookbook, the famous Moose Would cook Book, which is all vegetarian and so and I still have my copy that's covered in grease and dirt and you know, stains from food. Anyway, I love to cook, but I'll be honest with you and say that I'm a little lazy about cooking just for myself.
And so.
There's a lot of that because I'm hermit.
Okay, so you are alone. You do have to eat? Yes, what are you just freshing at? What's the refrigerator? Do you plan a meal? What does it look like?
I plan it like I I like to be able to be like I have about three different you know go tos that I don't have to think about. And then other days when I really want something different, I'll make the effort to like make something new. But you know, I just like to make my salmon with my Asian marinade and peanut butter, sesame noodles, or like to make my home homemade chicken noodles, soup, or you know, just you know, just stuff, you know, comfort food Ininegarten, barefoot contessa, easy peasy.
Yeah, okay, we're talking around the time of the holidays. What will you do for the holidays.
I will have family come to the farm where it's a it's a Thanksgiving pot luck in that sense, like everybody brings a dish whatever. And some of my sisters have giant children, so they eat a lot, so you know, they they they're giant people and they eat a lot of food. So like that sister, the mother of those particular giant children, will bring like the giant turkey.
You know.
It's sort of divvied up that way anyway. But everybody comes. Everybody comes to my house and and we eat, and then we take a long walk with the dogs. And then before it's dark everybody starts to pack up in their.
Clone, and how many people will come this year?
It'll be twelve, I think twelve or thirteen.
Okay, so everybody in your family lives within driving distance.
Not everyone, but in this particular case. Yes, these are sisters, spouses, nieces, nephews, no grandchildren yet.
Okay, so you're three out of four in the family. You have your personality, we've established. What are the other three like?
Thank god they're different from me. Now, I think we're all I think we're all somewhat similar. I don't know, i'd sort of I feel like I'm not the best judge of this. I don't really know.
I mean, they're your siblings. You grew up in the house and there's four kids. You know, there's a lot going on. I grew up with three kids. You know, the parents are on hands on me. It's not like if there's one kid. So there's one kid who's the outgoing, one of the sports person one of all. He sits on the sidelines. Their connections, their wars or arguments. What are the young what are the other three up to? What did their lives look like?
Okay, you really want to know all? Yeah, you're very thorough. My youngest sister is an elite athlete. It's like, how how how how the hell am I related to her? I do not know? And that she's first of all, she's tall. I'm so short. She's super tall. And she has been a runner, an elite runner for many years. She's one of those people that runs like one hundred mile races.
Yeah, right, ultra maritha ultra.
Yeah, she's an ultra athlete. And you know they start at midnight through the woods in the Shenandoah Valley and then that's a famous race.
I know about it, yes, yeah, yeah.
Yeah yeah, And I mean it's amazing, it's amazing what she does. So anyway she does that. Then my other sister, who's closest in age to me, and she's older, she is so smart it scares me. She's just like brilliant and she's retired now from her job, but she she's just like she knows, she just knows things, and she's just she's so smart about art and science and music and all sorts of things, and she's just she's just
incredibly smart. And then my oldest, oldest sister, and she is also retired from her job, but she was a journalist and you know, just is one awards and just super smart too. It's like we're all We're all different in terms of what we've pursued, but I guess we have we share some things. I don't know what.
So all girls, all girls? And are the other ones married with children or not?
My youngest sister is married. My two older sisters are divorced.
Were there any children in any of these stories?
Yes, they all have children.
Okay, yeah, you're growing up. Are people referring to you as Mary Chapin or Mary from the beginning?
It was a double name, right, as I understand, Yes, it's always been a double name, like Mary Beth or Mary Anne, but it's.
Married chap Okay, your siblings have double names.
No, my mother was Mary Bowie. She was from the South, and the South have this tradition, as I understand that double first names. Anyway, So she was Mary Bowie. My father's first name is Chapin, so and they named me Mary Chapin.
Okay, you're going to school. Are you the smartest kid in your class? No?
And I always felt and still do or fear like I'm I'm not the smartest person you know, remember broadcast news. Yeah, movie Holly Hunter and that famous scene where he says to her, it must be so he's being facetious. Of course, he must be so hard to always be the smartest person in the room, right, And she looks at him so earnestly and says, it is. It is, Holly Hunter. Love it anyway? So no, I never feel like the smartest person in the room.
Well, listen, let's call a spade of spade. Unless you're like a internationally famous juggler or something, you have to be very smart to get into Brown. You can talk it down all you want. Did you go to public school or parochial school?
I went to a private school, private school, and I went. I went to private school, and then the last two years of high school I was in boarding school.
Where'd you go to boarding school? Taft? You went to Taft? Really?
Yes, sir?
I did? Good or bad experience? Oh good? Why did your parents send your way?
They were getting divorced and I wanted to get the hell out of Dodge?
Sure, yeah, okay, my parents fought plenty, but they were not divorced. Did you know that they were heading in this direction?
Absolutely? Absolutely? It was yeah, I did.
What was the thought amongst the kids, this is horrifying, is going to break up the family? Or thank God? Or what?
I think it was both? You know, I think it was I think it was a relief that it was like something was finally going to shift, because it was really toxic to be there. But at the same time, you know, it's an unknown and you don't know what's going to happen, and you're fifteen years old and you're scared, you know, and you're lonely and you're depressed, and you don't know what to do that not to not to tie this up with a bow and make it all tidy.
But that to me, what I just said is, you know, talk about motivation for wanting to play the guitar and write songs and just be in your room and comfort yourself. Somehow, that's a big part of it.
Okay, do either of them find someone.
New my father? Did my father?
Was that a cause of the divorce?
No? No, no, no, no, okay.
So when when do you first start playing an instrument? I mean, did you take piano lessons or how did it happen?
I my mother? You know, you've heard people joke about the Great Folks Scare of the early sixties.
Oh, I remember with a nylon string guitar and the sing Peter, Paul and Mary. Believe me, I know.
Which is what, Bob, You have just landed on it, that's right. So my mother had the Goya gut string guitar that she would get together with her friends like one night a week or something, and they'd all sit in a circle and play Kingston Trio whatever. They'd look at the chord chart and put their fingers on the front board and all that stuff. And then that lasted I don't know how long. But then that guitar sat in the corner gathering dust, and it's like, I want
to play that. But also I had a bass ukulele, which is the first four strings of the guitar. So I started playing bass ukulele and stealing all those songbooks and just you know, teaching myself. And then when that guitar sat collecting dust, and it was like, okay to take mom's guitar. And then that's I started playing her guitar. And I remember being in second grade and it was time for school assembly and I played Salito Lindo on
the guitar. I just remember being in second grade, so it certainly goes pretty far back.
Did you ever take any lessons?
No, not on the guitar. I tried to take piano lessons when I was in high school, and I sucked so bad I couldn't and I had used my you know, I I would teach, you know, learn by listening, you know, self taught that way, and I tried to learn how to read music. I remember, in particular Bach's minuet and g dun't d d d dunt dun you know, but I memorized it so I wouldn't read the notes, which sabotaged my ability to read music because I would never practice. So that was a failure.
We all saw that movie from that generation. But you peak in second grade. Where do you go from second grade?
You just keep listening and learning, and then the next thing felt like, well, I want to write my own songs, and I would they. I don't remember any of them, but I remember being very deliberate, being like in fifth grade or whatever it was, and writing songs, my songs, you know, my version of a song.
Okay, there was you know, the folk of the early sixties, then the Meatles hit in sixty four. Most parents were not fans of that music.
Somewhere, but oh my parents loved it.
Oh really? So, oh were you listening to Top forty radio? Were you knowing? Yes, so you were a fan of.
The music w ABC cousin Brucey.
Oh the Countdown Tuesday Night, dan Ingram number one in the nation in the absolutely.
And the thing is, as you'll remember, is that you could hear Strawberry Fields forever, and then the next thing would be the Mom's in the Papas, and then the next thing would be the Turtles or Rolling Stones or Motown or something like that. So you could hear it all. And we had our transistor radios.
As I always say, I can sing every lick of Louie Armstrong solo Dolly because I was waiting for the Beatles, because you had to listen to stuff I like today that you didn't like. Okay, so you're writing your own songs when you are high school with the people in the high school say, oh, that's Mary Chape and she's the person who plays the guitar or is it a secret?
No, it wasn't a secret. I when you asked me if I liked being a boarding school or you know whatever. The first thing I thought of was the small group of friends that we'd all hang out, sitting out on the grass with our guitars, playing Paul Simon songs. You know, just we had our own thing, and it was all just I loved hang out with my friends who wanted to sing and play like me.
So, now you go to college, you bring your guitar. What does that look like?
Well, first I took a year off because I could not fathom being in college.
O whit wait, wait, that's a very hip thing now, But it wasn't then.
It wasn't.
No gap year was a lot of thing would you do during your gap year?
I did a Colorado outward bound ski mountaineering course. I drove myself. My grandmother had a car that she couldn't drive anymore, so I drove her car out to Colorado to Leadville, Colorado. But before that, I well, the whole reason that I had her car was because so I graduated from high school. And then that summer nineteen seventy six, I was on the grounds crew of the National Folk
Life Festival. It was just the only job I could get, and every penny I earned from that, I put it in a savings account, and then when that job ended, I found a Volkswagen camper bus from a guy I was living in DC with my dad, and from a guy at the New Zealand Embassy who was selling it because he was going back to New Zealand. And I spent all the money I had made, which was two thousand dollars, and my plan was that I was going to spend the rest of my year off just traveling.
And I had my camper and all these grand plans. And then the engine blew up a week after I bought it, and he was gone on and I couldn't afford to fix it, so I sold it for scrap. And then that's when I decided to drive out to Colorado in my grandmother's car.
Traditionally, outward bound courses are relatively brief. How long was the one you were in?
A month?
Are you an outdoorsy person?
I'd say so, yeah? Absolutely?
Okay, So all this gap year, you're still playing the guitar, still writing songs?
Yes?
So now you show up at college yep? From minute one, are you the girl who plays a guitar and writes her own songs.
I'm that person who's sitting in the stairwell or in the bathroom that has good acoustics, you know, playing and singing.
Yeah, okay, we're in this narrative. Now, let me ask a different way. When you're playing, whether it be in taffed or brown, is there any thought, well, this is what I want to do as a career.
Honestly, I don't think I ever allowed myself to think about that because it just was too far fetched.
I mean.
No, never never thought for a second.
Okay, so you're at college for four years. Are you performing outside of the bathroom and hallway?
So what would happened? What happened was I'd be in college what fall, winter, and spring, and then I'd go home on the summers. I was living with my dad right off of Connecticut Avenue and DC, and he one night he came into my room and he said, why don't you go down to that bar that's down the street where they have an open mic night? And I was like, I don't, Oh, maybe maybe I could. I don't know. Well I did. I went down there, signed up.
Never been so terrified in my life, but I did it, and then played a song or two and thought, well, this is okay, this is nice.
I like this.
And so every summer between college years, I would come home. The lady who ran that bar gave me a job on Thursday nights for forty bucks a night, and I could not believe it. I was getting paid to play music.
Okay, let's go down. Hey, why are you staying with your father as opposed to your mother?
Because I just felt like that was where I needed to be. My mom lived a few blocks away, and I just didn't feel like I was getting along with her.
Okay, you go to the club at your father's, you know, bringing it up. Hey do you play original or covers? You say, hey, this is cool? Is there any reaction? The other people say, hey, that girls pretty good. Oh.
I don't know what they said, but they didn't boom me. So I think I came away feeling like it was a a terrifying but positive experience.
So ultimately, Thursday night, you are the sole musician on Thursday night?
Yeah, eventually, eventually, not right away.
So yeah, so how do you get from open mic to your own night?
So I started going to this open mic more and more frequently, and to a few others around town, and it gave me a certain amount it had to. It
gave me a certain amount of confidence, I guess. And then like the next that I was home for the summer, I remember going up to the proprietor of that bar, that first bar that i'd gone to, the open mic, and just asking, right because I knew that they had music every night, you know, different players, And I said, would you ever hire me to play you know, three sets or whatever it was? And she said, yeah, I'll give you Thursday nights. She just said yeah. And it's like,
I just it's funny. I don't know, I don't know what I expected her to say, but I don't think I expected her or to say yes right right, you know, I just didn't and but she did, and that.
That just that was lovely, Okay? Is that your personality? We are? However mildly you'll reach out for something or do you wait for things to come to you?
I don't think that I wait for things to come to me. I think that I well, I do have a bit of a saying that I use in different situations. This is not precisely the same the right situation, but I would I use the saying replace worry with action. It's just like, you know, it's just yeah, I just think that I I mean, I'll think about something for a while, I'll consider something for a long time, but then at a certain point it's like I'm going to just ask the question now, or I'm going to make
the inquiry. I'm going to find out.
So you're playing on Thursday night? Two sets? Are these originals covers? Mix? What is it?
It's a mix? It's like I I would sort of I would describe it as playing sort of acoustic top forty with a few originals sprinkled in and hope nobody would notice, which they didn't.
Okay, so that is after you graduate, or that's the last summer.
That's that's the that's the summers throughout college.
Okay, So now you is there other than showing up getting your forty bucks? Is there anything happening anybody saying hey, I want to play with you or you know networking? Are you just there?
There were a couple of people who were that I made friends with during the open mics that we would play, you know, you know, sort of have casual sort of like a duo or whatever, or or just get around and you know, sit around tables and play together, but nothing in a formal sense.
So now you graduate, then what well?
I do remember? I actually remember this. I remember another person I knew at college who was visiting DC and he came to the bar on the night that I was playing, and he was from I don't know where he was from originally, but he was all about he was living in LA or something, and he said, why aren't you moving to LA? And I remember going, I don't know, I don't want to live in LA. And
he sort of made me whatever he said. I remember coming away from the conversation where it's sort of like, you know, he just believed he's one of those people that says you have to go to these places to be discovered or to get traction, and I was like, I kind of like what I like being where I am and I don't think I have it in me to move to a strange city. I just didn't never. Never, it was never something I felt like doing or wanted to do.
So once again, you graduate from college, then would you Yeah?
And then I was living in another group house in DC and just making my rent with open mics and one bar in particular where I would play on Friday nights and pass the hat, and I'd play from six to midnight passing the hat, and I could make my
rent money on those nights. And so I did that for a long time, and then I reached a point where I like, after a couple of years, I'd say, I just in the my friends that I was sharing the group house with, they all had they sort of had careers that were starting to like real careers, and I was just kind of playing the open mics and doing temp jobs. And I realized at a certain point I was really depressed.
I just.
It's not like I had some vision of what was supposed at what my life was supposed to look like, but I just didn't really know what I wanted in my life. And I think I just saw I just decided, well, this is just what I am. Whatever I am doing is not making me happy, so I need to do something else. And so I this was back in the day when you would get out the want ads at
the Washington Post, you know, turn the pages. And I remember looking for like a job, like a real job, and there was some consulting firm on K Street that gave me an interview as a researcher. You know, I could type, you know, all that stuff, and I had a brain. And I remember sitting with the woman who was interviewing me, and she said, if we were to offer you this job, how likely is it that you would take it? And I looked at her and I said, it's very likely. You know, I I'm ready to do this.
And and then a week later, it was a Friday, she called me on the phone and she offered me the job formally, and I panicked, and I said, could I have the weekend to think about it? And I could hear how annoyed she was in her voice, but she said, okay, right, fine, And that weekend I just sort of had this come to Jesus kind of reckoning with myself, like I don't know, I don't know what I'm doing, but I just know that I'm not ready to do what that job is.
And it was.
Around that time that I had met this person named John Jennings, and you know, sidebar, he and I had dated for a while that didn't work out, but we remained friends. And he was a great musician and he had a studio in his basement and I remember it was very soon after I turned that job down that John said, well, let's just you know, let's make you let's make a demo tape. Let's make it, or no, let's make a tape that you can sell out of your back pocket at gigs. It's like an album, you know,
you just make a cassette tape. Because people were doing that. It was the beginning of indie, you know. And so with his help and generosity and guidance and just beautiful spirit, he helped me make a record. And you know, fast forward a few a year or two, that record ended up in the hands of A and R gentleman. It's Sony in Nashville, and I got a record deal. Go figure.
Okay, just to drill down a little bit, here, you make the tape you hear from the guy in Nashville from Sony. These things are never smooth. Time goes by, there's up and down, there's angst. I mean, what was really the experience from first hearing from him to putting your ink on paper.
I honestly don't remember there being a period of time where it was like in doubt or close in doubt again, or close or it's gonna happen, or it's not going to happen. I just don't remember any sort of tumultuous period of time between the time they offered me a record deal and the time I signed. I just don't remember it.
Okay, the guys in Nashville. Country music is morphed through a lot of things. Yes, since the nineties. Yeah, you're a girl from the East coast, goes with ivylea college guy signing out of Nashville. In the back of your mind said well, you know, this is country music.
So I think part of the reason it happened is
because he was new to Nashville. He had been an A and R person for Sony in the pop work, and he was I think they were starting to try to see that there was a lot of different things under the big umbrella of country music, and people like Steve Earle and Roseanne Cash and Lyle love It, Rodney Crowe and Guy Clark certainly, and just there was a lot of different strains, right, And I think they hired him because they I mean, I don't know, but I think they, you know, he was going to broaden the
horizons of Sony music. I don't know, I don't know. I still don't know.
Okay, so you're working with Sony, you make a record. Certainly at that time, and still with major labels today, they tend to put you to work. They tend to say do this, do that whatever. So before you had any commercial success, were you driven and were you you know, were you working showing up at radio stations, playing gigs?
You know?
To few people, well, what did that period look like?
First of all, I didn't quit my day job for two after I had made two records, and then I quit.
My day job. And the day job at that point was what it was.
I was an administration assistant at a foundation at DuPont Cervo, and as long as I got my work done, you know, Like I just remember this one. We got a gig to open for Lyle love It in Chicago, so we all sort of like got in our cars and made a long weekend of it, drove out there, did the gig, came back, and I was back at the job on Monday morning. You know, it's like you figure out ways to make it work.
It was.
You know, it's the myth of the major label deal that you sign on the dotted line and they give you a tour bus and a budget, and you know, it's like, no, that was not my experience. And so, like I said, I didn't quit my job until and I didn't quit my job because of my record deal. I quit my job because I finally got a publishing deal. They paid me a small amount of money per week as long as I handed in whatever it was at that time, like ten songs over the course of a
year or something like that. That's what allowed me to quit my job.
That begs a question who owns those songs today?
I can't remember the name of the company.
Now let me let me put it in a couple of ways. Normally, you make a publishing deal. Modern publishing deals, they take half of the publisher's share, leaving you with seventy five percent. Now, these things tend to terminate where the artist after period of time owns one hundred percent. But certainly back then that might not be the case, where the publisher would continue to own an administer for
the life and the copyright. So in terms forgetting the administrator the songs themselves, do you share them with a company or do you own them one hundred percent?
I don't own them anymore.
Okay, let me ask you a question. So in this craziness of the last five years you so called soldier catalog. What was the motivation there?
Security just feeling like it was the right time and the right decision for my life, and certainly upon the advice of some really trusted people. It was certainly not an impulsive move. It was considered over a very long period of time.
And did you make the kind of deal where you're done, done done, or do you still have any interest in the catalog?
How would I have interest to me?
Sometimes you sell seventy five percent.
Oh no, I think I'm done, done done.
Okay, So what'd you do with the money?
None of your business?
Well, I mean musicians are legendarily not good with money. So I know someone who made a very lucrative deal household name, and within two and a half years blew through all the money in lifestyle.
This is someone that's crazy.
So everybody knows this person. Then there are other people who say, well, I'm going to have a diversified thing, I'm going to have stocks, I'm going to have real estates, I'm bonds. Then there are other people say, oh, I always wanted a vacation house. So the real question is wherever the money was invested. Are these long term investments such that you don't worry about money you have to pay attention to the investments or did you say I mean I could tell already you didn't buy some big
thing because that's not your lifestyle. But you know, did you hire a financial advisor and say, hey, I got X and you know, let's split it up.
No, I'm very fortunate that I've had financial advice and guidance from my first record onward with a wonderful firm that are I truly believe I would have nothing without their guidance over these years. And so they've just been and they're very conservative, and you know, so I've just been very fortunate and grateful for them just being my shepherd, you know. And so it's just a it's you know, it sort of parked the money and it's you know, doing what it does us to keep me secure and
allowed me to take care of others as well. And so it's just that's where it is.
Okay, you don't have any children, and you do have relatives when you are gone, you want to spend it before you're gone, You want to leave some relatives. You want to have a foundation. You know, what's your perspective.
I I know one person who used to say to me, a shroud has no pockets, and then I have another person who says to me, what the fuck do you work so hard and so long for to not enjoy it now? And I'm just caught between those two viewpoints. You know, I'm just I've just always found it hard to figure it out, and so I just kind of don't do anything about it. I just kind of try to live life in a smart way and try to be there for those who need me and just and
be grateful. Really, I know I've said that a few times during this interview, but it's true.
Okay, there are also royalties on the recordings. Did you sell those two? Oh? Yes? Okay, So at this point in time forgetting wanting to do you have to work? You say, well, god, you know I got mortgage payments, I wanted to put on an addition to the house. I better book a tour or is that all worked out where you can do what you want to without worrying about financial constraints.
That's probably the greatest gift is that what I feel like it is enabled me to do is to do projects that aren't based on the transaction or a return, that that the the project itself is worth it if I want to do it artistically. And so in that way, it feels like total freedom, and it's not based on you know, how much it earns or how it gets paid.
Back, and in terms of playing live, how much you want to work?
Well, I love I you know all the you know, work keeps us young, it keeps us alive, all those things I I want to. I want to tour and work and write and make music and make songs and record and all of those things until i don't want to anymore. But I'm just nowhere near that.
It's just let me be a little bit more specific. I didn't ask question. There are people who work forty days a year. There are people who work two hundred and seventy days a year. I'm talking about on the road. What's the number that works for you.
It's different every year. It's different based on the project, I think, and it's different based on you know, whether my other hand needs an operation or I need to get my shoulder replaced, and you know, just all the things. So I would you know, every year is different. But I will say that over you know, over time, the tradition to like go out in the summer, for example, it just doesn't feel like summer unless I'm out there, like playing a wolf trap for example, in every August
just feels like home. And it's I have so much joy from that, and I have so I get so much from I mean, this is the God's truth. It's so much from the connection with people.
You know.
It's like it's not just plug in and play and say a few witty things if you're lucky. It's about feeling connected and in community with people. And I've never felt like I needed that more than I need right now in terms of the shit show that we're in in this country and what life feels like. It's like I need, I need to feel like I'm with like minded souls.
Okay, just going back to your recording career in its early days, what was it like when you had a hit?
Like it was are you kidding me? Are you joking? Is this a joke? Like yeah, it's like that's to this day, That's how I feel. It's not you know, I'm not trying to be overly humble or crazy. I just it's like it just never was anything I ever ever ever imagined.
What happened to me?
Just bonkers.
And then you're a private, as you put it, hermit. Certainly for a while, the area every time you turn, you bumped into you were a story about it. What was that like for you? Emotionally?
I I have always had, I continue to have, and I certainly had it back then, the most awkward and uncomfortable relationship with success or fame or whatever you want to call it. Just it's just been so you know, I'm just oh my god, just the contortions I would put myself through just having to do meet and greets and you know, you know, walking backstage before the show and having fifty people lined up in the radio stations and all that. It's just like I just wasn't cut
out for it. I was just I mean, I I love meeting people, but I'm just not a you know what I mean, I'm not.
You don't want anything superficial. If you want to meet him, you want to meet him for real.
Yeah, I guess, I guess it's just it was just hard. It was always hard. But also it's just like that white hot light of attention that's on you, and I'm just in the grocery store trying to buy groceries, and people would come up to me, and ninety nine point nine percent of the people are so nice and so lovely and so kind and they just want to say hi, you know, but I'm just like, whoa, what just happened? You know? Just you know, it's just it's not something
I ever. It's like, I remember there's an Ann Tyler. That Ann Tyler, I forget. I thought it was Ann Tyler, but she said I had some paraphrasing. I had a misunderstanding about fame. I always imagined it was me entering other people's lives, not there entering mine, And I thought that I related to that.
Okay, when commercial success declines, how do you cope with that natitude? You feel like the label has moved on, or the world has moved on, or it's unjust or it's time. What was that like?
I remember very clearly a record that I had made and submitted to Sony, and they came back after I had submitted the songs, and they just there was one song, for example, where we had it was Oh my gosh, it was an instrument, an electric citar. It was just like this cool sound, and they're like, you have to take that off? What huh? And they're like, you have to take that off. Oh, and you need to take the horns off of that other song too, And I was like why and they say, because no one's going
to play it on country radio. And I'm like, says, who I mean, just based on just because you woke up this morning and think that, or just well research, they say, And it was like, you know, that was my introduction to oh this. We have research groups and you know, we played them six seconds of a song and they tell us whether it's a thumbs up or a thumbs down based on six seconds or whatever it was.
And I was just like, this is so crazy. And then and also just like, wait a minute, I just heard a Reaba mamac and Tire song that has horns on it. Why are you telling me I can't have horns on it? It just there was no answers to that, and so it got kind of just like in the weeds that way a lot, and it just felt like this isn't this. You know, I'm so grateful for everything they did for me and everything that we accomplished together.
It's like a marriage, you know, but then it started to feel like we weren't getting along, and it felt right to finally not re up with them after it was like twenty years or something, and it felt.
It was sad.
I was really sad. But I also felt like, you know, we all have chapters. Life is about chapters, and I was ready for the next chapter. So I didn't feel I didn't mourn that in a It wasn't it wasn't debilitating. It just felt like it was time to be brave and go to the next chapter.
So what about the world today, Well, what do you think? I mean, I'll make it very short going on the record. Yeah, yes, I believe that Trump is an autocrat dictator. I would like to see change. I do not believe in the system anymore. System has had some victories as we speak, but I don't believe in it, and anybody who's from the older generations isn't really going to do anything because
they don't want to put their money at risk. So the only change I am waiting for an Arab spring moment from Generation Z who the government and the institutions are completely out of touch. I mean, at root, you have incommitted quality. In addition to the government, and I would hope then, because I have no hope that through evolution in the process, it will work out.
I don't disagree with really anything you said. I was thinking about, well, I think about it all the time. But like I was listening to a podcast today where one of the hosts was talking about how she had Did you ever listen to the Political gab Fest?
No podcast?
Okay, it's great. And Emily Basilon, who's a writer, she's a teacher at Yale, but she's also a writer for the New York Times. So she just published this article with one of her colleagues last week that was like an oral history of that. They interviewed a really like all these prime they had They were lawyers who had worked for the Justice Justice Department, but they had either been fired or they left on their own accord whatever. You know, there's a huge amount of people who have left.
And they were talking about when Trump is finally out of office, whatever that looks like. And she was saying from her standpoint as a lawyer that these were people who these were their dream jobs. They loved their work, they loved what they did, and they believed in the mission. And then the conversation was about is it possible once this administration is over, assuming a democratic administration comes in,
is there going to be tit for tat? Is there going to be another sort of upheaval throwing people out, or is it possible to build back not to use that phrase, but to reconstruct what was so great and meaningful and important about the Justice Department again, And her sense from all these people that she interviewed was that
it's not possible. I believe that's what she said. And I just you think about that, you frame, you use that sort of question and apply it to other aspects of our culture and our government and everything, and it's like, I like, on my worst days, I like you say, you know it's going to be about evolution and gen
z and all this. I don't know how we regain trust in institutions and how we rid ourselves of the cancers of ideology that are out there and driving you know, just oh my god, just the announcement today that the CDC has posted on his website scientifically false claims. You know that ideology overrides evidence, you know, scientific evidence. I mean, it's just how do we fix that effort? You know, how are we ever going to fix that. It's a
rhetorical question. I just I don't know, and I fear and grieve for our country and its institutions and most of all the American people. It's crazy.
Well, I think we're going to leave it at that. I certainly could talk, but then we'll go on for an hour about this.
What an uplifting thing to leave it?
I mean, I guess for me, I'm reinforcing something I said earlier incommun equality and the generation gap. I'm a news hound. You cannot read a publication for educated people that does not constantly be rate technology and thinks the smartphone is the devil. We are here speaking across the country as results of technology. I grew up in an era where television was a devil, people still watched it, right, So until you come into the present, and then of
course the next question. I mean, it's as simple to you. One can simply say, there are everyone is getting their news they want whatever, as opposed to one cohesive channel or as you know, a few channels like in the old days of networks. But the underlying problem of living in a tower of Babbel society. Listen, the legal system is always going to be behind technology and you just can't demonize this. But you can't. This is like Spotify. I don't want to make this about Spotify money.
Oh God, please please evil Spotify. Okay, no, but yeah.
Prior to Spotify, we had the record companies saying P two P was theft and revenues were going down. Spotify said we are going to get ahead of the consumer. I haven't used this analogy in a long time. You grow up and you watch Westerns. The robbers come in and take money from the bank and the elders town elders to get together. They don't say, you know, we're gonna build a really big megaphone and put it on top of the bank and yell bring the money back.
They always say the same thing in every one of these movies. We're gonna cut them off at the pass. So, without making about who's making money from Spotify here or other, it was ahead of most people's thinking, well, you know what if I'm out you know in tim Buck too, and I don't know electricity, well you can, you know, you can down those those things. So it got ahead of the consumer. The only they way all these issues work if there's some deep thinkers say, listen, where we
are is chaos. Let's go beyond and say let's corral the people into this new thing. Instead, you have people from our demo just saying, you know, God, you just gotta put down the phone. I mean, this makes me crazy. There's nothing better than the phone. I mean connect Listen. I would not call I would not call myself a hermit, but I would not say that I connect with all people. Okay, And as a result of the Internet, I can connect
with like minded people. It's the greatest thing that ever happened for me.
I am not a luddite in any way, shape or form. I love what I have been able to learn, engage in discover bathe in choral music from everywhere, you know, just all the things that technology allows me to do. But this is what I do say at the end of shows, which is, and it's not meant to sound ceremony, but this is. But I do want to I would be happier to leave on this note than.
The Okay, then we'll make this the final statement.
Okay, which is you know, there we are in this room with all these people that have gathered for a show, and that's the end of the show and what and I have one more song to sing, And I say, you know, we've all got these devices in our back pockets. And the truth is is that you can pull that device out and in the wink of an eye, you can you can find any book, any painting, any poem, any passage of music, any movie. You can find your
heart's desire on that device in seconds. But in my opinion, there'll never be a substitute for what it feels like to be all together in this room going on a musical journey together. And so to me, it's great to have the device. It's great when you're walking out the door whatever, But this experience right here, there's never going to be a substitute for it, and I for one celebrate that well.
Although you're making that statement, that's what has happened. Experience is king without making about where artists earn their living. Forget that people want to go to the show. They want to have that experience more than ever, And certainly studies have told us younger generations are more into experiences than things. I guess you know, I agree with what you're saying, and it's all reasonable just as long as people don't make it either.
Or yeah, no, I just I want both. I absolutely want both. I want all the things that the device will bring me because I've gained so much. But at the same time, I also want that experience. I want that community, I want that connection. I want it to be the antidote to the device.
Bottom bing, you get the last word, Mary Chapin, thanks for taking the time to speak with me and my audience. I really appreciate it.
It's a pleasure. Thank you for chatting with me.
Until next time. This is Bob left six