Harry Chapin - Verities & Balderdash
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Artist: Harry ChapinEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1990-10-12
Music Label: Elektra / Wea
Soundtracks:
- Cat's In The Cradle
- I Wanna Learn A Love Song
- Shooting Star
- 30,000 Pounds Of Bananas
- She Sings Songs Without Words
- What Made America Famous?
- Vacancy
- Halfway To Heaven
- Six String Orchestra
Free Music Notes for Verities & Balderdash
Free Music Review: "And so I dreamed a bass would join me..."
Hit: 5 Stars
VERITIES AND BALDERDASH was Harry Chapin's most commercially successfully album due to its Top 10 Single, "Cats in the Cradle." That song -- often maligned today due to excessive airplay on Oldies Stations -- remains a perennial pitch for work/life balance. The remainder of the album, however, offers a wonderful sampler of the vocal, musical, and emotional range of the underrated singer-songwriter-activist.
There are other more comprehensive reviews of all of the tracks, so mine will focus on three album cuts: "Vacancy," "She Sings Songs Without Words," and "Six String Orchestra." Arguably, these three songs capture the range of Mr. Chapin's talents, although certainly a strong case could be made for other selections as well.
"Vacancy" is a song of the pain of loneliness and the oft vain attempts to establish human connection and intimacy amidst the false solace of empty encounters. That emptiness is summed up in these words:
"The sheets show their struggles,
The glasses their fears,
The ashtrays the hours passed,
the towels their fears."
Vacancy continues in the lives of both the motel man and his assorted guests -- spectator and participants in a dance of despair.
"She Sings Songs without Words" fall nicely into the soft-ballad category and expresses gentleness and devotion. It is a departure, both musically and lyrically, from the harsher tone present in other songs on the album. The chorus offers reflective poignancy:
"She sings her songs without words,
Songs that sailors and blind men and beggars have heard,
She knows more of love than the poets can say,
And her eyes are for something that won't go away."
"She Sings. . . " gracefully expresses the purity of love that is absent in "Vacancy" and the power of genuine intimacy in uplifting the human condition.
Lastly, there is "Six String Orchestra," he one of the two "humorous" tracks that became staples of Harry's concerts and live performances (the other is "30,000 Pounds of Bananas). For every hack musician, for every tortured guitarist whose notes offend the sensibility of decent people, Chapin crystallizes the fantasy behind their continued efforts to make music in the night. There are a number of versions of this song available, especially on the web -- in my opinion, this one is the best.
VERITIES is, in many ways, a transition album. Lyrics flow more effortlessly, the instrumentation is more varied and complex, and Harry's voice is just a bit more mature and seasoned. While not perfect (one track, is rather trite), the album is a great treasure and a showcase of Harry Chapin as he was and would become.
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