On the corner of love & heartache

Howdy Folks!

It’s hard to believe that Mary Chapin Carpenter’s Shooting Straight in the Dark is 30 years old. I have a niece that is the same age as the CD. I feel old. I used to play the cassette then the CD on repeat and I still have my original copy of the CD and haven’t had to replace it like I did Hometown Girl CD.

Her record company released 4 singles from it. Below is the first one, You Win Again. Pictured below is the promo copy of the single and it says Demonstration/Not For Sale. The song was written by MCC and copyrighted in 1990 and published by Getarealjob Music ASCAP. The demo copy clocks in at 3:20 while the album cut is 3:59. The musicians on it, though not listed on the promo, are Robbie Magruder: Drums / Matt Rollings: Piano / John Jennings: Bass, Electric Guitar / Mary-Chapin Carpenter: Acoustic Guitar / John Jennings, Mary-Chapin Carpenter: Background Vocals.

The first single from Shooting Straight in the Dark.

According to The Billboard Book of Top 40 Country Hits by Joel Whitburn, this song entered the Country top 40 on November 24, 1990. It stayed in the top 40 for 11 weeks and peaked at number 16.

Below is the official video on Vevo of You Win Again. Enjoy!

Video for You Win Again.

Over & Out,

Lisa M Luck

Everything you’ll ever know

Howdy Folks,

Shooting Straight in the Dark released 1990.

It’s been a short while since a post but here goes. We celebrated the 20th anniversary of Come On Come On. We missed the 25th here. But there are more anniversaries on their way. Actually, 2020 is the 30th anniversary of Shooting Straight in the Dark and the 10th anniversary of The Age of Miracles.

The Age of Miracles released 2010.

I intend to post some memorabilia that I have from these 2 albums. But before I go back, I want to stay in the present and talk about Mary Chapin Carpenter’s new album that came out this summer called The Dirt and The Stars.

The Dirt and The Stars released August 2020.

The album came at a good time for us music lovers who have been denied the chance this year to attend live music concerts. It wasn’t a concert but some much needed new music from a cherished singer-songwriter. She was just able to get into the record studio and record before the quarantine shutdown. And I’m so glad for that since the record is exquisite. Well, all of them are as far as I’m concerned.

The record evokes emotion but once the emotion has passed after listening to it for 15 times in a row, there were some questions that came up for me to ask the singer-songwriter. How do you do it? How do you write songs that invoke so much emotion from the listener? How do you decide to drop in a word like quotidian in the middle of a lyric? By the way, it wouldn’t be an MCC record if I didn’t have to use the dictionary to look something up. And finally, who is the ‘you’ that’s always riding with you in a car when you were 17? It’s like the mystery of This Shirt. The listener always wonders what it looks like. Of course, the listener can always drop in their significant other when they were 17. Well back for another listen of The Dirt and The Stars.

Over & Out,

Lisa M. Luck