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64 of 70 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If you have to classify your music by genre...., May 31, 2004
then this MCC CD, her first since 2001, and only her second collection since 1996, is not for you.Old fans want MCC to give them more of "Down at the Twist and Shout"...country fans want her to give them country. People want MCC to declare her style. Well, she doesn't have just one style, and "Between Here and Gone" is evidence of that. There will probably not be any big "hit" from "Between Here and Gone"....MCC should be able to get play time as Sheryl Crow does, between country and pop, but because she doesn't present as a rocker chick, or stay on the pages of People magazine, MCC will, thankfully, get to do just exactly what she wants with her music. And "Between Here and Gone" demonstrates that. It is a poetic collection, a demonstration of the wisdom that MCC has gathered by being a spectator of this world, and by writing songs about what she loves. It may not "hit" you, as a listener, right away. In fact, the opening tune, "What Would You Say to Me"...which may have been included so that MCC had a chance at a country single hit, well, it's not worthy of the rest of the CD, but it does add the uptempo that many of her fans seem to want. The remaining songs are interwoven with wisdom and some sadness. I'm only lukewarm about "My Heaven" - MCC's song about moving between life and afterlife (her reaction to the novel "The Lovely Bones") although I do love that line about Eva Cassidy..."when Eva's singing 'Fields of Gold')...lukewarm was my reaction to the novel, as well. In the remaining songs, MCC implants her poetry and her tunes, with help from acoustic genius John Jennings and capable producer Matt Rollings, in your head, and you can't get them out of there once they're in. "Grand Central Station" stands out as MCC's tribute to 9/11, from an odd angle, of a construction worker waiting in the vaunted old station and seeing what we've all seen, from a new and more sad perspective. The voices of those who died that day keep resounding in the aftermath of his day's toil to clean up the madness. "Beautiful Racket" and "Girls Like Me" find their wisdom in Mary's new and married life...what it is like now, and what it was like before she found the person she was seeking. "Beautiful Racket" could succeed as a video on CMT -- there are millions of married women out there who can relate to the craziness of the days...all worthwhile. "Luna's Gone" wakes up the CD for me, in second place on the list -- otherwise I'm sort of numb until song 5. "Luna's Gone" is sim[ply a collection of beautiful memories about someone who has left the family... "Little wild child we loved so true,... Guess the wind in the trees is all she left behind her...Guess it's part of the plan to know we'll never find her".... But the intensity of the CD is on the remaining songs. MCC wrote "Goodnight America" as her tribute song to the days that were and the days that now are, as America wakes up from its naivete. It's not a Toby Keith bleed red white and blue ballad, but it does encompass the way many of us feel as we look forward into the world we've created for our country. "Between Here and Gone" is MCC's tribute to " all the splendid ones gone too soon"...including the greats Dave Carter, Jim Croce and Tom Mader. It's a poignant and sad song that leaves us no doubt that MCC sometimes finds her muse in the way others would have given us music today, if they were still with us. Then too, it capitalizes on her feelings left over from "The Lovely Bones": "Could I have felt the brush of a soul that's passing on......
Somewhere in between here and gone..." Other reviewers here have praised the songs "River" and "Elysium", certainly two of MCC's all time best. Both are love songs of the most poetic, and the melodies and arrangements outstanding. To give you a flavor for two of the other fine songs that have gone without much recognition, I keep returning to "One Small Heart" and "The Shelter of Storms".
Again, lyrically and rhythmically, instrumentally, these are
incredibly poignant. In "One Small Heart"...MCC is taking off and traveling the open road. Perhaps her singer is the girl that left in "Luna's Gone"...in any event, she's captured the lonely wanderlust of anyone who's gone on the road to escape the life they lead. "They lost you to the open road, one small heart and a great big soul that's driving".....and a signature line: "The key to traveling light is to not need very much.". There's some beautiful keyboards and steel guitar in this cut, and this one is hard to shake from your head, once its implanted. Finally, "The Shelter of Storms"...is a bittersweet song of lost love and the wisdom that comes of looking back on it. MCC is truly introspective here, and the lush arrangement and low timbre of her voice, along with a poignant echoing of a french horn in the arrangement help present the pain to the lover who has left her. Not at all radio friendly, "The Shelter of Storms" is one of those jewels you will need to discover for yourself as you listen to this CD with your ears wide open. Sad and angst ridden? Perhaps that is the tone that some listeners hear...for me, MCC gives us the outlines of her view of life, looking back and forward. Too talented to be just a poet, Carpenter continues to demonstate that she is her own musician, and one who has grown into a classic purveyor of songs that have meaning. If you were impatient with Norah Jones jumping around genres on her newest release...if you think her music is boring and puts you to sleep...you won't like MCC's new CD, either. But if you're able to listen with both ears and heart, you'll realize it is one of her classics. Highly recommended.
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~ Mary Chapin Carpenter
~ Mary Chapin Carpenter
~ Mary Chapin Carpenter
~ Mary Chapin Carpenter
~ Mary Chapin Carpenter
is Mary Chapin Carpenter's 
