Inside the
Summer Issue:
Inside the
Summer Issue:
Harry Chapin’s
“Ripple” of Influence
Grows Every Day
Jen Chapin Leads Us
On A Lushly-Written
Journey Into Her Life
In “Ready”
WHY Takes Holistic
Approach to Fight
Hunger & Poverty
DMC’s New Disc
Strikes Many Chords
Hard Rock Café
Serves Up Benefit CD
to Fight Hunger
When Howie Met Harry:
Catching Up With
Drummer Howard Fields
Performing Artist
Inspires Audiences
Through Prose
Celestial Cross-Pollination
Yields a Harry Chapin-
Dante Anthology of
Student Essays
Amish Farmers’ Co-op
Finds Innovation in
Simpler Ways
Still Wild About Harry
Behind the CD “Cause”
Do Something!
Click below
to read previous
issues of Circle!
Jen Chapin Leads Us On A Lushly-Written
Journey Into Her Life In “Ready”
by Linda McCarty
“Circle!” spoke with Jen two weeks ago as she was beginning her promotional push for the July 11, 2006 release of her latest CD with Hybrid Recordings. Here is our conversation:
Congratulations, Jen, on the release of your extraordinary CD, “Ready.” Why did you select that song as the title for your CD?
Well, you try to think of a word that could have multiple meanings and resonance. The whole concept of a title track I am ambivalent about, but this points in a lot of directions, from thinking where I am in my life and my readiness to start a family, to readiness to reassert our democracy and how we are making policy in our public life, to being ready for romance and to be awake, alive and alert — and ways the listener’s imagination can think about it.
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| Stephan Crump and Jen Chapin |
In the songs on your last CD, “Linger,” there was a theme of finding the little hours of time, while on “Ready” it’s more about making time and luxuriating in it. Is that a conscious decision on your part? And how much of that has been influenced by the preparation for and arrival of your son, Maceo?
I appreciate that you hear a progression there – I don’t know that it was conscious, but it may be that my sense of my own time has changed, and the question of — how can I make twenty minutes count? An hour? — has been part of preparing and adjusting to motherhood, and has made its way into the music. I’ve been asking myself how to make it count. But parenthood or not, some things are the same thought — “Strip It Bare” is an elaboration of “Little Hours” images of lying in the grass, looking at the sky, living life and not worrying about the clock. The lyrics came specifically from a poem I wrote when camping in West Virginia.
I guess I’m a proselytizer of leisure, and it makes me think of my dad [Harry] and his use of time. Even as youth I thought I wanted to do things like he did, with passion and engagement, but do it slower and take a break. As a woman I knew wanted to have a family and that my responsibilities there would require different priorities than his, and perhaps more patience.
While we’re speaking about that new arrival, would you talk about the genesis of both the song and video of “Let It Show?”
That song, and it wasn’t the only song on the album where this happened, but it came down to the end of the month where I had a self-imposed deadline for writing a new tune – the last for the album. And I was thinking about how I hated myself, and my mind was complete desert of nothingness, but I had committed to writing one song a month and it was time. It was one month before we were going into the studio and two months before Maceo was due. I was staring into space, but the guitar and keyboard were there, and some ideas came together while anticipating his life and choices.
My brother Josh heard it the first time when it was still rough and said, ‘Well I know this is about Maceo, but I can’t help but think it’s a little bit about me as well.’ I think he was right. There was a little element of my brother and others I care about, and my hope they can find that passionate pursuit where they can put talent and energy. The video can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHFxoG9Yqjs&search=Chapin.
Chapin fans will be especially interested in your song “Goodbye,” a touching farewell to your family home on Long Island. What inspired you to commit that to writing?
It was in January of 2005 when my mom was on vacation, and I was just starting to write these songs. I was newly pregnant and went to the house in Huntington, alone with my job of writing. I was in the house where I had grown up and where my family had made its home for 33 years, but my mom was putting the house on the market. The song was therapeutic to write and comforting to have as a kind of rite of passage. That first time when I was strumming along with the guitar, when all the lyrics and the chord progression and the melody had come together, and in first moments of singing I actually got weepy. But I’m glad I have the song.
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| The Boss & The Baby: Jen Chapin and her son Maceo joined Bruce Springsteen, Laura Cantrell, and Otis Taylor to perform Woody Guthrie’s “Oklahoma Hills” during the Nebraska Project concert at the World Financial Center Winter Garden in New York City earlier this year. Photo courtesy of heartonastick.blog-city.com. |
A line from “Election Day”—We settle our stomachs. We do what we can—is reminiscent of your song “Passive People.” Was it your intention to ask your audiences to reconsider their complacency and get involved?
That’s definitely a part of it. It’s an interesting connection to “Passive People.” It’s more of a question than an answer: what can we do and does it matter? It was about Election Day 2004. I had wishes of an outcome, but there was this emphasis on trying not to be overtly partisan, so I was attracted to an effort that was nonpartisan, the Election Protection Coalition. We had our clipboards and T-shirts, and it was all very “neutered by cold clean process,” as the lyric goes. We were not to show preferences, but to answer voters’ questions and to note irregularities.
We were there from six in the morning until eight at night at the polling place – an elementary school in a working class, mostly black neighborhood in Youngstown OH. There was a great cast of characters, from volunteers with MoveOn.org, to Republican poll watchers, to hired-for-the-day Kerry campaign workers, and the school was still open so kids were running around chanting, ‘Kerry, Kerry.’ So, in this song I was trying to take different parts of experiences and conversations and show the camaraderie of all being there together, sharing food and talking football (the Jets had won the night before!) The song also reflects on trends of what was going on, with religious fundamentalism and so-called “moral values” – and the whole high-school popularity contest element of it all.
You have a unique flair for breaking things down to their simplest elements while expressing your sensuality. How did the song “Skin” take shape?
That was also a product of a long day staring at blank page and feeling miserable, but I had a fragment on paper four years old that I resurrected and found a musical setting for it. I sat at the piano and, like with a lot of songs, it came as a composite of lines from years past and also some from a few months earlier.
There are some unexpected instrumental performances on this CD. How did a ukulele come to make an appearance?
Actually two appearances, on “Election Day” and “Ready.” So much of things with my band come from the player themselves. I’m not the one to say “find a ukulele and play it.” [Guitarist] Jamie Fox said he had one and could try to put something together, and we always try to find a twist from the conventional sounds. That instrument is kind of goofy, you can’t keep it in tune, and it’s hard to play, so to get something great out of it is challenging. But easy can be boring.
What projects are ahead for you this year?
It’s all about trying to promote this record. I have interviews almost every day for the next two weeks and have radio and TV show appearances, but we still won’t know if the word will get out there! My publicist is working hard, but the fact is without word of mouth momentum, it won’t work. We are hoping it will catch fire and that it will have a larger audience the last one. I was in People and Entertainment Weekly with great reviews for “Linger”, but without multiple impressions and people telling their friends it just doesn’t work.
But the biggest part is touring, so we’ll be going to the East coast and Midwest and in the fall to Texas and California, so people can check my website, jenchapin.com to see where we’re coming. And we need babysitters! We want to have Maceo with us and enjoy him, and we need to have people stay with him or take him around the block in his stroller during our shows. My creative energies are going toward logistics and marketing right now, and I don’t have much time to make music right now except for when I’m performing, which is what it’s all about for me.
To find when Jen will be performing in your area, visit her website jenchapin.com or myspace.com/jenchapin. Ready, her latest effort with Hybrid Recordings, is available at stores nationwide or online at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.
Watch for the Next Issue of Circle! on September 7