Not much is going to measure up against Dire Straits' "Making Movies" but my next album still represented itself well. We return now, to country folk crossover.
Disc 246 is...Hometown Girl
Artist: Mary Chapin Carpenter
Year of Release: 1987
What’s Up With The Cover?: A photo of Mary Chapin Carpenter that looks like it was taken from her agent's portfolio, superimposed on top of a picture of an old farmstead. I'm sure this is supposed to evoke the 'hometown girl' feeling, but it skates dangerously into 'bad folk album photography' territory.
How I Came To Know It: As I noted when I reviewed "Stones In the Road" way back at Disc 44, I can't perfectly remember, but I think it was a music video off of her 4th studio album, "Come On Come On". That was the first album I bought, but "Hometown Girl" was second, I think partly because it was in the sale rack. Fools!
How It Stacks Up: I have four Mary Chapin Carpenter albums (4 of her first 5 in fact). Of the four, I'd have to put "Hometown Girl" at the top of the list. It doesn't have the slick production values of later records, but it more than compensates with superior songwriting.
Rating: 4 stars.
"Hometown Girl" is one of those many albums that never had the commercial success it deserved. Carpenter would go on to make a modest string of hits, but her first album never even charted. Again, I declare - more emphatically this time - fools!
So many quietly beautiful songs populate this record, it is hard to know where to start. It is a record - not unlike Rilo Kiley's "Takeoffs and Landings" that captures the mixture of exhileration and regret that we feel in early adulthood as we leave to pursue our dreams. In Carpenter's case, this is brought into focus through songs that look back on her own youth, and the choices she has made to pursue music. As she sings in the title track, "Hometown Girl"
"I knew girls when I was sixteen
Could make a smart boy stutter, turn a nice boy mean
And the boys turned the girls into homecoming queens
And married each other instead of their dreams."
She contrasts this life she avoided with her own current experience in the chorus that follows:
"These days I'm mostly out on my own
Looking for someplace that I can call home
Late at night or just before dawn
I pretend your with me now
It never seemed so hard before
What happened to that hometown girl?"
Other songs, capture the ephemeral nature of fame. Already off and running with a record deal, Carpenter pays homage to her fellow musicians that weren't so fortunate in "A Lot Like Me":
"Well he played a lot of places where the only wages were food and beer for free
No fancy licks but he had a gift, the kind of songs he'd sing
But you do what you can to be a satisfied man just to have your piece of mind
So he gave it all up for a government job where the paycheques come on time."
And underscoring the point, Carpenter notes that at the end of her set, she gets her old friend up on stage, and the results remind us that the line between fame and obscurity in music is razor thin, and often arbitrary:
"When I get him up, at closing time
A couple of songs and a chance to shine
As the star that he longed to be
He looked a hell of a lot like me."
This theme also closes the album, on "Heroes and Heroines", which is one of my favourite folk songs over the years. It is a song that bemoans that with each great and brave discovery, there is one less uncharted frontier. While paying homage to those heroes of our past, Carpenter ends with a comparison to those people still willing to strike out anyway:
"Lord help the fool who said,
'better quit while you're ahead'
A dreamer born is a hero bred"
There are so many other great songs on this record - including a remake of Tom Waits' "Downtown Train" which is very good (and a damned sight better than the Rod Stewart monstrosity). Carpenter sings beautifully throughout, and Steve Buckingham's guitar playing is skilled albeit respectfully in the background.
"Hometown Girl" does suffer slightly in terms of range, where the songs are generally introspective and quiet, making it hard to find auditory landmarks on your first few listens, but it is also what makes doing so that much more worth the effort.
Each of the tastefully restrained 10 songs on "Hometown Girl" not only tells a story, within that story it shows us a facet of life in a new light. That the production values are subpar just makes it a diamond that's a little rough around the edges, but polishes up beautifully.
Best tracks: A Lot Like Me, Other Streets and Other Towns, Hometown Girl, A Road Is Just A Road, Just Because, Heroes and Heroines
Disc 246 is...Hometown Girl
Artist: Mary Chapin CarpenterYear of Release: 1987
What’s Up With The Cover?: A photo of Mary Chapin Carpenter that looks like it was taken from her agent's portfolio, superimposed on top of a picture of an old farmstead. I'm sure this is supposed to evoke the 'hometown girl' feeling, but it skates dangerously into 'bad folk album photography' territory.
How I Came To Know It: As I noted when I reviewed "Stones In the Road" way back at Disc 44, I can't perfectly remember, but I think it was a music video off of her 4th studio album, "Come On Come On". That was the first album I bought, but "Hometown Girl" was second, I think partly because it was in the sale rack. Fools!
How It Stacks Up: I have four Mary Chapin Carpenter albums (4 of her first 5 in fact). Of the four, I'd have to put "Hometown Girl" at the top of the list. It doesn't have the slick production values of later records, but it more than compensates with superior songwriting.
Rating: 4 stars.
"Hometown Girl" is one of those many albums that never had the commercial success it deserved. Carpenter would go on to make a modest string of hits, but her first album never even charted. Again, I declare - more emphatically this time - fools!
So many quietly beautiful songs populate this record, it is hard to know where to start. It is a record - not unlike Rilo Kiley's "Takeoffs and Landings" that captures the mixture of exhileration and regret that we feel in early adulthood as we leave to pursue our dreams. In Carpenter's case, this is brought into focus through songs that look back on her own youth, and the choices she has made to pursue music. As she sings in the title track, "Hometown Girl"
"I knew girls when I was sixteen
Could make a smart boy stutter, turn a nice boy mean
And the boys turned the girls into homecoming queens
And married each other instead of their dreams."
She contrasts this life she avoided with her own current experience in the chorus that follows:
"These days I'm mostly out on my own
Looking for someplace that I can call home
Late at night or just before dawn
I pretend your with me now
It never seemed so hard before
What happened to that hometown girl?"
Other songs, capture the ephemeral nature of fame. Already off and running with a record deal, Carpenter pays homage to her fellow musicians that weren't so fortunate in "A Lot Like Me":
"Well he played a lot of places where the only wages were food and beer for free
No fancy licks but he had a gift, the kind of songs he'd sing
But you do what you can to be a satisfied man just to have your piece of mind
So he gave it all up for a government job where the paycheques come on time."
And underscoring the point, Carpenter notes that at the end of her set, she gets her old friend up on stage, and the results remind us that the line between fame and obscurity in music is razor thin, and often arbitrary:
"When I get him up, at closing time
A couple of songs and a chance to shine
As the star that he longed to be
He looked a hell of a lot like me."
This theme also closes the album, on "Heroes and Heroines", which is one of my favourite folk songs over the years. It is a song that bemoans that with each great and brave discovery, there is one less uncharted frontier. While paying homage to those heroes of our past, Carpenter ends with a comparison to those people still willing to strike out anyway:
"Lord help the fool who said,
'better quit while you're ahead'
A dreamer born is a hero bred"
There are so many other great songs on this record - including a remake of Tom Waits' "Downtown Train" which is very good (and a damned sight better than the Rod Stewart monstrosity). Carpenter sings beautifully throughout, and Steve Buckingham's guitar playing is skilled albeit respectfully in the background.
"Hometown Girl" does suffer slightly in terms of range, where the songs are generally introspective and quiet, making it hard to find auditory landmarks on your first few listens, but it is also what makes doing so that much more worth the effort.
Each of the tastefully restrained 10 songs on "Hometown Girl" not only tells a story, within that story it shows us a facet of life in a new light. That the production values are subpar just makes it a diamond that's a little rough around the edges, but polishes up beautifully.
Best tracks: A Lot Like Me, Other Streets and Other Towns, Hometown Girl, A Road Is Just A Road, Just Because, Heroes and Heroines
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