Acclaimed singer-songwriter and musician, Mary Chapin Carpenter‘s new single “Secret Keepers,” debuted on July 10, and you can listen here:
The single is from Mary’s upcoming new album, The Dirt And The Stars, which will release on August 7 on Lambent Light Records via Thirty Tigers. Pre-order the album HERE.
Of the single, Carpenter shares, “‘Secret Keepers’ is about holding onto things that feel too dangerous to let go of, too perilous to share, too complex to shine a light upon. The deeper you think you’ve buried something, the more power it seems to have over your life. The scars may be invisible but that doesn’t mean the pain that caused them has disappeared. It’s a constant reminder to be kind out in the world because you never really know what someone is carrying around…”
The Dirt And The Stars was produced by Ethan Johns (Ray LaMontagne, Paul McCartney, Kings of Leon), and recorded live at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios in Bath, England. The album’s themes consist of universal life, including intimate questions and reflections of life. The album’s content was written by Carpenter at her rural Virginia farmhouse before the stay-at-home orders resulting from COVID-19, and the album is a sentiment of wisdom, experiences, and discovering the best in all of us. Check out the album’s title track “Between The Dirt And The Stars,” which premiered last month, HERE.
To preview the album, Carpenter was featured on “PBS NewsHour,” performing her new music, and talking about her life during quarantine, and her “Songs From Home” virtual concert series. Check out the full feature HERE.
Talking about music, Carpenter shares, “The writer Margaret Renkl once said, ‘We are all in the process of becoming.’ That doesn’t stop at a certain age. To be always a student of art and music and life, as she says, that, to me, is what makes life worth living. It’s certainly what makes me want to still write songs. No sugar coating, the songs are very personal and they’re difficult in some ways, and definitely come from places of pain and self-illumination, but also places of joy, discovery and the rewards of self- knowledge. They arrived from looking outward as much as inward, speaking to life changes, growing older, politics, compassion, #metoo, heartbreak, empathy, the power of memory, time, and place. So, I suppose I could say there are many themes, but they all come back to that initial idea that we are all constantly ‘becoming’ through art and expression.”
The Dirt And The Stars marks Carpenter’s first collection of all-new material since 2016’s The Things That We Are Made Of, produced by Dave Cobb (Jason Isbell, Chris Stapleton). In 2018 Carpenter released Sometimes Just The Sky. Produced by Johns at Real World Studios, the record celebrated her acclaimed 30-year recording career with new versions of some of her most beloved songs as well as one newly written song, which became the title track. Over the course of her acclaimed career, Carpenter has sold over 14 million records. With hits like “Passionate Kisses” and “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her,” she has won five Grammy Awards (with 15 nominations), two CMA awards, two Academy of Country Music awards and is one of only fifteen female members of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
THE DIRT AND THE STARS Tracklisting:
1. Farther Along And Further In
2. It’s Ok To Be Sad
3. All Broken Hearts Break Differently
4. Old D-35
5. American Stooge
6. Where The Beauty Is
7. Nocturne
8. Secret Keepers
9. Asking For A Friend
10. Everybody’s Got Something
11. Between The Dirt And The Stars
Connect with Mary Chapin Carpenter on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Stream her music on Spotify and Apple.
