Album Review: Mary Chapin Carpenter, ‘Personal History’
Like the best of poets and storytellers, Mary Chapin Carpenter spins expansive webs of beauty, longing, and emotional depth. On each of the songs on her new album, Personal History, she meditates on chapters of her own life, and she invites us to walk with her on this labyrinthine journey as she shares the enduring wisdom gleaned from the life’s small moments.
The album opens with the soulful meditation on time, “What Did You Miss?” Shimmering piano chords flow beneath Carpenter’s introspective musings about the craving to experience all life has to offer and wondering what we miss when we turn one way rather than another. The album takes its title from the song’s final refrain: “I’ve been walking in circles for so long/Unwinding the mystery/I’ve been writing it down song by song/As a personal history/A personal history.” Gently picked guitars weave around and under surging piano chords on “Paint + Turpentine,” an ode to Guy Clark. The spare cadences of “Girl and Her Dog” mimic the simple pleasures of walking the fields with her dog and “keeping it simple as it can be.” Cascading piano notes open “The Saving Things,” a meditation on the simple things—“the sound of rain on a roof that sings/first day in ages that feels like spring/don’t forget, don’t forget/the saving things”—that spirals into a wall of sound that celebrates the beauty all around us. On the percussive “Bitter Ender,” wailing harmonica and slide guitar propel reflections on our inclinations to hold onto love—or to hold on in any hopeless situation—until the “bitter end,” determined to make things right, no matter what. “The Night We Never Met” is a lilting waltz to ships passing in the night, while the exquisite ballad “Home is a Song” rings with the power of place and belonging. The album closes with “Coda,” tender paean to the quiet that’s left after the noisiness of life.
On Personal History, Mary Chapin Carpenter weaves songs from lyrical filaments and layers of cinematic instrumentation, enfolding us in a rich rhythmic grandeur. It may be her best album yet, and it is certainly one of the best albums of the year so far.
###
Personal History is available HERE.
Resources
MaryChapinCarpenter.com
Tour Dates
Music & Merch
Instagram
Facebook
YouTube
