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Folk artist Carrie Newcomer draws her inspiration from the natural world
April 18th, 2008
by By MARIO TARRADELL / The Dallas Morning News
Metaphors are like trees, plants and even geodes. They're everywhere, ready to be spotted by those who are vigilant and attentive.
Enter Carrie Newcomer, who has drawn acclaim as a folk singer-songwriter who derives inspiration for her melodic, lyrical tunes from nature as well as people and literature. Even a cursory listen to her beautiful new CD, The Geography of Light, details her penchant for using the seemingly ordinary living things around us as metaphoric sustenance.
Light showcases such earthy gems as "There Is a Tree," "Geodes," "Leaves Don't Drop (They Just Let Go)," "Biscuits and Butter" and "One Woman and a Shovel."
"Geodes" particularly stands as a thematic signpost of the album. She wrote the song about the mystical rocks that look mundane on the outside but sparkle on the inside.
" 'Geodes' is a lot about living," she says by phone during a tour stop in Pittsburgh. "Something that looks really ordinary on the outside, but there are crystals inside. They are quite wonderful. I love that idea, that we can't tell what is inside from the outside, that there is a mystery. In some ways it sums up how I look at the world."
Ms. Newcomer is a song crafter with a warm, husky alto that cuddles lyrics instead of simply singing them. She's never maudlin. Throughout a career marked by 11 solo discs, she has offered words and music for thinking, comforting and listening.
That her organic creative process comes from a grass-roots place enhances the artistic impact.
"I live out in the middle of the woods in southern Indiana, and when I'm home, I spend a lot of time there," she says. "The time spent in the natural world is very important to me. There are always some of those images in my work."
After she left folk group Stone Soup in the late '80s, the 49-year-old Ms. Newcomer launched her solo oeuvre with 1991's Visions and Dreams. By 1994's An Angel at My Shoulder, featuring the metaphoric "Only One Shoe," she had grown most comfortable with her muse. The Geography of Light shines thanks to the details and the scope of her songs.
"Leaves don't drop, they just let go," she sings, "And make a place for seeds to grow/Every season brings a change/A seed is what a tree contains/To die and live is life's refrain."
"We're living in a virtual world," she says. "We're not encouraged to pay attention. A lot of this album is about paying attention. I make a conscious choice to do that. I begin to think of problems, and I begin to see the metaphors. When I see nature, what is it that I see? What connections do I start to see? That is a conscious choice. We are living in a culture that doesn't necessarily encourage that."
Ms. Newcomer, who plays about 120 dates a year, chooses to keep making music that matters, even if she'll probably never have a pop hit or sell millions of records.
"What does it mean to be successful? What does it mean to find who you are and what you want? If I could have done anything else, I probably would have. It's not always an easy life. But I'm fascinated with writing songs. It's like writing a book and telling your entire story in that short amount of time. It needs to be poetic and personal and have a rhythm to it. A song has to be told in an elegant way.