Mary Chapin Carpenter’s Latest Album Explores Themes of Aging and Self-Discovery
It took the Grammy winner four years to write her latest album.
— -- The importance of place, memory and the passage of time are deeply rooted in Mary Chapin Carpenter’s fourteenth album, "The Things That We Are Made Of." In broad strokes, she skillfully traces where she has been and sets the stage for what is yet to come.
With more than 14 million records sold over the course of her career, Carpenter is a veteran of her craft.
Still, the album is fresh with songs like “The Middle Ages,” putting a tune to experiences that Carpenter can only tell at this stage in her life.
“We decide there are other things, more important than the things that we might have seen as goals in our twenties…and in the end, I conclude, maybe it’s something that you can’t reach until a certain time in your life or have certain experiences,” she said.
After four years of writing, the Grammy award-winning artist finally decided the album was complete.
"I finished the song that became the title to the album and it’s when I finished that song, ‘The Things That We Are Made Of,' I felt some feeling like I think I’m done,” she said.
Carpenter takes the listener on a journey, drawing upon her own experiences as a middle age woman to speak to broader universal themes of identity, memory, timing and change.
“[It’s] trying to make sense of where I find myself in my life at my age, in this world, how to navigate it. How to be happy. How to not feel so lonely at times. How to recover from hard things that happen.”
She admits that she doesn’t have all the answers. In fact, the album itself poses more questions than answers.
“I think it’s important to ask questions...sometimes it’s the questions that are more important than knowing the answers,” she said.
Nevertheless, she embarks on her own self-discovery, learning what truly matters to her. “The only things that really matter to me are love and kindness and those are the things that I want more than anything from myself, to the people I know and from those people towards me," she explained.
"The Things We Are Made Of" will be released May 6 and features 11 new songs.