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.
 |
| 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.
 |
| 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