LaRM day 73 (Harry Chapin-Tracy Chapman)

OK, so, Harry Chapin. Now by all accounts Harry Chapin seems to have been a really lovely bloke, giving all of his money away to homeless charities and only doing benefit concerts. However, his records are rather less lovely. First album, the abysmally titled Heads and Tales (1972) is certainly his best record and the only one that isn't cloying almost immediately. In fact, to be fair, Heads and Tales has some truly lovely bits of light folk-rock and although it's entirely ignorable it doesn't offend in any way. Opening song 'Could You Put Your Light On, Please' is an interesting hodge-podge which starts off in a kind of Tim Buckley-esque jazz-folk way and moves through all kinds of stuff, from Billy Joel to ELO, and ends with a massed choir. It's an impressive four minutes but nothing else on the album can match it. One of his most famous songs, 'Taxi' is an odd angry sort of Joelesque narrative song with some nice Nick Drake strings behind it, but it also points out the rather fatuous direction that Chapin was going to go. Second album, Sniper and Other Love Songs (1972) is a lot worse, insipid and tedious folk-rock which outstays its welcome pretty swiftly. 'Sniper' and 'Burning Herself' are fantastically overblown bits of rock melodrama and although it may have seemed pretty bold at the time it now sounds absolutely laughable. The rest of it is composed of portentous slow numbers that try too hard to imply depth. Really, the whole thing sounds like the Monkees trying to turn an Ionescu play into a rock album.

Short Stories (1974) is actually a bit better, it doesn't have any stupid rock-outs and Chapin's taste for narrative lyrics makes more sense when the whole album states its intention to be character studies and little stories. There are one or two great songs ('Changes' is lovely) but really it's all pretty daft. As is fourth album, Verities and Balderdash (1974) which opens with easily Chapin's most famous song (thanks to the unbelievably horrific cover by Ugly Kid Joe) 'Cat's In the Cradle'. It's not a good song and neither are any of the others on Verities and Balderdash. It's all self-important, overblown, pompous singer/songwriter rock twaddle. As indeed, and even worse, is everything on On the Road to Kingdom Come (1976) which is so dismal I can't be bothered to write anything about it. Do you know we've got quite a long stretch of not very good records ahead. I think this is as bad as it's going to get though so the worst is over. Suffice it to say that the Chapin box set was another work freebie and it's one that's going straight to the Oxfam shop at the weekend.

Listening to Tracy Chapman's debut album from 1988 now really reminds me just how tiresomely earnest adult rock had become at that time. I'm all for using pop music for serious ends but really the post-Womad world was a pretty po-faced one and it's no surprise that the 90's launched themselves with such abandon into outright hedonism. At least in the 60's people were taking drugs and acting generally like total idiots while talking their politics rather than sitting around in Laura Ashley living rooms drinking enormously expensive Chablis while discussing Tracy Chapman's wonderful evocation of the terrors of homelessness. The 80's were truly a terrible time. As with everything it's still fair to say I blame Thatcher. Anyway, although it's not a bad record by any stretch of the imagination ('Fast Car' really is a great song, no matter how familiar), it does push the patience with its absolutely steadfast denial of humour, irony or anything really that would lift its leaden tone. You can't deny that it's seriously heartfelt stuff and I really admire Chapman's determination not to be swayed from her purpose, but listening to it now is a little like listening to someone whine.