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New
Beginning
Tracy Chapman |
Tracy Chapman embodies the story of the sufferer. Her characterizations
of life on the streets mix harsh reality with her own unique
brand of stripped-down musicality. This album moves beyond her
previous efforts, blending a more positive, uplifting message
with her streetwise observations and feelings about relationships.
In the title track, Chapman explains calls for change in her
own conversational style: "Now don't get me wrong I love life
and living/But when you wake up and look around at everything
that's going down all wrong/you see we need to change it now,
this world with too few happy endings/We can resolve to start
all over, make a new beginning." Chapman, a guitarist who cut
her teeth playing music on the streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts,
is still a streetwise poet. That can be heard in "Cold Feet,"
a tragic ballad of vulnerability and despair about the loss
of a promising boy to peer pressure and violence. In one of
her starkest cries yet, "The Rape of Our World" reveals mankind's
apathy to the destruction of the Earth, blaming human beings
for strip mining, dumping, poisoning and clear-cutting without
conscience, and singing, "We all are witness to the rape of
the world." Joining Chapman are Andy Stoller (bass and tamboura),
Rock Deadrick (drums and percussion), Adam Levy (electric guitar)
and Glenys Rogers (percussion). But Chapman, who plays acoustic
and electric guitar and organ, never gets lost in the mix. And
her songs, beneath her throaty vocals, present a refined melodic
edge that makes several songs worth hearing over and over.
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