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Telling
Stories
Tracy Chapman |
With Telling Stories, her first album since 1995's New Beginnings,
Tracy Chapman returns to the spare, unsentimental feel of her
early work. In doing so, she recaptures some of the urgency
and simple melodiousness that made her debut a soulful folk-rock
classic. There's maturity here, exemplified by recurring spiritual
metaphors. On "Unsung Psalm" she imagines her funeral, singing,
"I'd have a halo and flowing white robes / If I live right."
"Wedding Song" offers the plainspoken, devotional line, "I reach
out for your hand / For you I'd don a veil." The musical arrangements,
too, are pared-down, with ghostly banjo, silvery fiddle, and
guitar woven into subtle drum loops. Though not as immediately
captivating as her debut, Telling Stories is a focused return
to form for Chapman.
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