MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER, Singer-Songwriter: Actually, I did apply to work here once, and I didn't pass the typing test.
DANIEL ZWERDLING, Host: [laughs] Is that really true?
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: It's the truth, yeah.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: [laughs]
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: I was too nervous on the the typing test, even though I'm a- I'm a wicked typist. But, you know, the minute you're tested for it, you freeze up.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: How many years ago was that?
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: It was 1986.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: I- are- are you kidding me?
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: No.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: You applied to- you applied here to National-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Yes, just as a-
DANIEL ZWERDLING: -Public Radio in 1986 to be a typist?
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Yeah.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: And they turned you down. [laughs] We turned you down. [laughs]
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Yeah. I didn't pass the test.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: And aren't you lucky-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: [laughs]
DANIEL ZWERDLING: -that you- you went on to be one of the hottest music stars in America.
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Oh, no, no. So I-
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Is that job still open on our staff? We need [laughs] we need a typist. We are rolling, I should say. Singer-songwriter Mary-Chapin Carpenter has won so many Grammy awards and music country awards and other awards that it's hard to keep track of them. Do you, Mary-Chapin Carpenter, do you, can you list for me how many Grammies you've won, and?
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Well, I- I can tell you, yeah. But I- do I have to? [laughs]
DANIEL ZWERDLING: I'm- this is not the time to be self-effacing.
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Um, five.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Wow. And you practically sweep the Country Music Awards. Yes, yes, you do.-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: No, I don't. No, I don't.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: But, anyway.-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Awards aren't- awards are- are lovely things on the evenings that they come your way, and they're like a pat on the back, you know, from your peers, and- and it feels great. But then the next day it's- it's back to business as usual.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: But it is an extraordinary measure of how far you' ve [laughs] come, in what, 10 years? I mean, 10 years ago, was it 10 years ago, you used to play solo at a funky, little natural foods restaurant, not far from this building, where you would literally pass the hat-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Yeah.-
DANIEL ZWERDLING: -between numbers to try to collect a little money.
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: It's- it's an honorable profession like anything else.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: But- but do you- do you drive by that restaurant, which is called Food For Thought?-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Mm-hmm.-
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Might as well plug them because they helped you get your start.
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Absolutely.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Do you ever drive by it and shake your head and think `It's really hard to remember back in those days when I?'-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: No, if anything it's very easy to remember. I- I feel like it'- it feels like ti could have been yesterday. It- it- I think what I feel like is I can't believe that 10 years has passed, because it feels very fresh in my mind and very- very immediate and easy to remember and with much affection as well.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Hmm. Well, we- we have a great gift today, which is that you have joined us in our performance studio for a solo with your guitar, pretty much like you appeared in those day-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: [laughs]
DANIEL ZWERDLING: -ten years ago at the natural foods restaurant and their funky, little stage. Would you, before we talk more, would you- would you sing something for us?
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Sure. I think my toe-tapping might get in the way, but you can deal with that, can't you?
[singing, playing guitar]
When we were young, we pledged allegiance every morning of our lives / The classroom rang with children's voices under teacher's watchful eye / We learned about the world around us at our desks and at dinner time / Reminded of the starving children, we cleaned our plates with guilty minds / And the stones in the road, they shown like diamonds in the dust until a voice called to us to make our way back home / When I was 10, my father held me on his shoulders above the crowd to see a train dressed in mourning pass slowly through our town / His widow kneeled with all their children at the sacred burial ground / And TV blowed that long, hot summer, with all the cities burning down / And the stones in the road, they flew hot beneath our bicycle tires, worlds removed from all those fires as we raced each other home / And now we drink our coffee on the run / We climbed that ladder rung by rung / We are the daughters and the sons / But here's the line that's missing / The starving children have been replaced by souls out on the street / We give a dollar when we pass and hope our eyes don't meet / We pencil in, we cancel out, we crave the corner sweets / We kiss your ass, we make you horde, we doctor the receipt / The stones in the road, they fly out from beneath our wheels / Another day, another deal, before we get back home / Stones in the road, they leave a mark from whence they came / A thousand points of light or shame - baby, I don't know / Stones in the road.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: So obviously a song about our- our lives, their indifference to the homeless, to-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: It's something of a- of a song of coming of age and- and sort of my cynicism, I suppose, coming out. And that we grew up- or we were taught certain things as we grew up, and then we kind of really turned out quite differently from what we- what we were supposed to grow up as. And now, as an adult, it's the things that you think about in your day to day and that you're faced with in your day to day - standing on the corner at K Street and the homeless people coming up to you, asking for a donation or a handout or something. -
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Mm-hmm. And you're talking about K Street here in Washington, D.C., not far from the White House.
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Right, and how many times do you feel like you can reach into your pocket and give? Or how many times do you want to pretend that you don't see the person that you're- I don't know if this happens to you, but a lot of places around Washington, when you're in your car, and there's a lot of homeless folks who come up to you in your car. And how many times have you rolled up the windows, maybe locked your locks and stared straight ahead because it's too hard to look at them in the eye as they pass by you.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: I look at my watch.
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: You look at your watch.-
DANIEL ZWERDLING: No, [laughs] I'm not kidding.-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Yeah.-
DANIEL ZWERDLING: I mean, it's a very uncomfortable moment.
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: It is, yeah. It's so hard. It's so hard to live the way we feel like we should. Mm-hmm.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: One thing that every critic says about you is that you are one of the best songwriters, in- certainly in the world of country music, whatever that means, because I know there's a lot of discussion about what your music is exactly. And many say, you know, `one of the best songwriters, period, in this country.' And they talk about how, you know, your songs go way deeper than most songs we hear on the radio. So how- how do you write? Do you have a schedule for yourself? Do you have the same desk? What are your rituals?
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: I- I never used to think that I had rituals, and I think that's really a key word. And I've discovered through, mostly through reading other people, other people's descriptions, other writers' descriptions that the smallest, most innocuous things can be rituals. Staring out the window, for hours on end it seems, can be a ritual. For me, it is sitting at this desk that I have-
DANIEL ZWERDLING: What-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: -in this room.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Mm-hmm. Can you describe the room and the desk?
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: The room is just a square room, [laughs] windows facing west and north so I get afternoon sun, and this old wooden desk, and the chair with no arms. [laughter] That's important.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Why?
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Because otherwise my guitar would be smacking against the sides.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Oh, you write with your guitar-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Oh, yes.-
DANIEL ZWERDLING: -in you lap.
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Oh, OK, I- I- oh, let me really describe it to you. Absolutely. But I have a guitar stand off to my left, and my- it's important also that my chair have rollers on it, because I push back from the desk, grab the guitar and sort of get comfortable in the chair, play a while, then feel like I want to pull up to the desk again to- to write something, push the guitar over on the- put the guitar on the stand, pull up on the chair, on the rollers to get up near the desk and- and I write with a- I've always done this. And everytime I've been without it, it's almost hard- it's- it seems harder to write - I need a yellow pad, but not legal size.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: No?
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: The regular-
DANIEL ZWERDLING: You don't like the big-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: I don't like the long size. That doesn't work for me somehow. And it's got to be- what's the diff- the different- the lines- college-ruled. [laughs]
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Mary-Chapin Carpenter, you do have rituals. [laughs]
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Well, now, you're asking me describe, and I guess I'm realizing, I mean, I wouldn't think about, but when I go into a stationary store to get some pads, I don't like the lot- the wide lines. I like the little lines, because I kind of write in a little scrawl. And I write in pencil.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Actually, I would love to ask you just one or two more quick things about the craft of songwriting. But before I do, I would love to hear another song, if you're in the mood right now to sing one.
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Let me think, um. [sound of guitar] This is a song about driving, in a way. I've, for the past dozen years in September, I get in the car and I drive down to North Carolina. And it's after you pass Norfolk and the road becomes a two-lane road. And you go through these- these hamlets that- it's as if they' re not really even separate. They just kind of blend one into the next. And what I was thinking of was just the different details on each side of the road and almost trying to use the- the, sort of, the vehicle was to- to become those details to tell the story-
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Hmm!-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: -if that makes any sense. So it's called `I Am A Town.'
[singing, playing guitar]
I'm a town in Carolina, a detour on a ride, for a phone call and a soda / I'm a blur from the driver's side / I'm the last gas for an hour if you're going 25 / I am Texaco and tobacco / I am dust you leave behind / I am peaches in September, corn from a roadside stall / I'm the language of the natives, I'm a cadence and a drawl / I'm the pines behind the graveyard and the cool beneath their shade, where the boys who've left their beer cans / I am weeds between the graves / My porch is sightly with old black men and children / My sleep is felled with dreams - I never can fulfill them / I am a town / I'm a church beside the highway where the ditches never drain / I'm a Baptist like my dad, and Jesus knows my name / I am memory and stillness, I am lonely and old-aged / I am not your destination / I am clinging to my ways / I am a town / I'm a town in Carolina / I am billboards in the fields / I'm an old truck up on cinder blocks, the same old mine wheels / I am Pabst Blue Ribbon, American, and southern serves the South / I am tucked behind the Jaycee sign on the rural route / I am a town, I am a town, I am a town, southbound.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Hmm. That's- that's an especially amazing song after the first one you sang, `Stones in the Road,' which is sort of a saddened, almost cynical view of America, and this one is like a love story.
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Yeah.-
DANIEL ZWERDLING: An ode.
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Yeah, I think so. Uh-huh.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: As I've been sitting here listening to both of these songs, I was thinking, ah, these are so beautiful with you just playing, sitting here with your guitar, alone. But I guess what I' m wondering is when you hear yourself now, when you hear these CDs, and some of the songs are, you know, very highly-produced.-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: I don't listen to- [laughs]
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Is that- you-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: I don't listen to the records very- after I've done them, it's- you've heard it so many times. Honestly, I- I can't remember the last time I went back and listened to one of the CDs.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: And I'm not sure whether to totally believe you or not. I mean, a lot of people say `Oh, I never look at the movie once I've been in it.' And I-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: It's-
DANIEL ZWERDLING: -usually don't believe them.
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: It's really easy not to do it. I mean, you' ve- you've heard it. You've - you- you've brought it to that place by listening to it, working on it, fussing with it, thousands and thousands of times, as well as playing the songs in concert thousands and thousands of times. It would never, if I wanted to hear music, it would never occur to me to out my own CD on.-
DANIEL ZWERDLING: [laughs]
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: At least- why? Why? You know.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Because they sound neat.-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: What's so hard to believe about that?
DANIEL ZWERDLING: [laughs] No, I believe you now. It- well-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: But do you go- I would ask- here's the- do you go back and read what you've-
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Oh, wait a minute, that's different.-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Or do you go back and listen to- to tapes?-
DANIEL ZWERDLING: This is journalism, there's no need- I feel like that's a different question, because if I did I'd be sick. [laughs]
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Well, no, but it's-
DANIEL ZWERDLING: `He's a megalomaniac.'
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: It's the same thing.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: `Gee, I think I'll go home tonight with a cup of tea and listen to last week's show.'
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: No, but it's the same thing.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Huh!
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: It's- why, you know- I don't know.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Well, that's an interesting question. We do have your CDs, we do listen to them. And I wonder if you could think of one song, maybe one of the ones you've just performed that we will play a little bit of from the CD, for our listeners, right now. And then, you know, we can compare that with what it sounded like you solo.
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Oh. [laughs]
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Where- where do you think we would find the biggest difference?
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: The biggest difference?
[singing, playing guitar]
Hey, babe, you tell me what we're going to do / It's getting crazy, I need some help from you / We were so connected then, you were a part of me / And now I feel an emptiness right to the heart of me / But you pretend and I pretend that everything is fine / And though we should be at an end, so hard admitting when it's quitting time.
[segue to recorded music] You can seg in, right now.
[from CD, fully arranged with band]
Hey, babe, I'm running out things to say / Please don't hate me, this feeling just won't go away.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: So which version do you like better?
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: I don't. I mean, it juts depends on your mood. You know, when you're out there, it's sort of `Mmm, what do you feel like tonight. Mmm, I like this fast version.'
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Hmm. You mean you actually feel different on different days?
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: I do.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: [laughs] That's a bold concept.
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: [laughs]
DANIEL ZWERDLING: This gives me the perfect opportunity. I- I have always wanted to ask a certified country music star-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Oh, please.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: What?
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: No, I'm just- I- I have this thing where I think that people who are- it's- it's my thing, but people who are `stars,' you know, are people who have one name, like Cher or Sting or something. And the rest of us are the rest of us. But what's a star? I mean-
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Mary-Chapin. That's-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: I-
DANIEL ZWERDLING: -almost one name. [laughs]
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: No, I think it's just kind of- it's- [groans]
DANIEL ZWERDLING: I've heard this about you, that you sort of have - `trouble' is not the word - but are not totally comfortable with your stardom.
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: [laughs] Yeah, uh-huh.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: What is that- what is it that makes you uncomfortable? I mean, people love your music and millions of people buy your CDs. That's-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: I-
DANIEL ZWERDLING: -not so bad, is it?
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: That's- no, that's not so bad. But that- that doesn't- I think it's wonderful, and I feel blessed to be able to be doing something where I- I wake up in the morning and I get to do what I like to do. Let's face it, I- what a job, you know? That- that's sort of what I feel comfortable with in terms of an identity. The other stuff that you talk about is just the stuff that I don't really relate to. That- that's what I'm trying to say.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Can I talk about that other stuff for just a moment? I noticed in reading articles about you over the last five years, and virtually every article I read in, you know, major newspapers - New York Times, Washington Post, others - the reporters describe every minute detail of your being. I jotted down some notes. In one article, in a major paper, they talk about what type of shoes you were wearing that day. They described how you bent over and- you wearing these shoes - how you laced the shoes. The reporter in one article- these are some sort of boots, I should- yellow boots. The reporter, who was a woman, I should add, described the sort of blue jeans you were wearing and the shape of your hips. Is that the sort-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: [laughs]
DANIEL ZWERDLING: -of stuff you're- I mean, why, why-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Yeah, I don't- I don't know what's important about that stuff.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: No, but you- and you don't under- you really don' t.
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: Because I think I contort under that kind of- I think of it as a glare, not a spotlight. I- it's- I suppose it has something to do with me being a very private person, and I- I- I feel like I'm contorting under that kind of observation. Yeah. So perhaps that's why I'm uncomfortable with it.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: All right, then I won't describe your lavender shirt and yellow boots.-
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: [laughs]
DANIEL ZWERDLING: OK, I won't!
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: [laughs]
DANIEL ZWERDLING: OK. So we would love it if you would wrap up our show with one more song.
MARY-CHAPIN CARPENTER: OK. [sound of guitar chord] I'll do this. It's a- a song called `Jubilee.'
[singing, playing guitar]
I can tell by the way you're walking that you don't want company.-
DANIEL ZWERDLING: [over music] Singer-songwriter Mary-Chapin Carpenter. And for this evening, this last evening of 1995, that's All Things Considered.