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Singer-songwriter Newcomer illuminates moments
July 16th, 2010
by Vicki L. Kroll
Singer-songwriter Newcomer illuminates moments
Written by Vicki L. Kroll | | news@toledofreepress.com
Slow down, savor life. That’s one of the themes running through Carrie Newcomer’s latest disc, “Before and After.”
“I’ve come to worry that we don’t really live days, we live moments, that’s what we remember,” she said. “There are moments that change us, we mark our lives by, look at and say, ‘That’s where everything changed.’ And sometimes they’re big moments — the birth of a child or a wedding or a divorce or losing someone we love.
“But many times they can also be small moments, little things that we didn’t realize at the time would move us so profoundly that we would remember always and mark our lives by. So ‘Before and After’ really explores this idea of living these moments, large and small, what they are, what we take from them, how they changed us.”
The singer-songwriter was reflective while talking about her 12th disc for Rounder Records during a phone interview from Hyannis, Mass., where she was opening for Mary Chapin Carpenter, who sings on “Before and After.”
“When I wrote ‘Before and After,’ I could really hear another low-voiced woman singing it,” Newcomer said. “Mary Chapin’s voice, I thought, would be stunning on the song … and it’s such a beautiful harmony.”
Newcomer’s sweet-sounding alto voice delivers humorous lyrics in another new song, “I Meant to Do My Work Today”: “I meant to do my work today/So many plans I had made/ I’d check the mail, I’d make the calls/ Save the world and sweep the hall/ Finally get my accounting done/ Sort the beans one by one/ But I got waylaid by the morning sun/ And I got absolutely nothing done.”
“We live such busy lives … I think it’s really easy to not be present in our own lives because there’s so many distractions, I mean, how many different kinds of media and how many kinds of communication do we have now?” Newcomer said. “The song kind of focuses on these ideas of being present in these small moments and all these things — OK, I should probably do my accounting right now, but as a poet, my real job is to dream, to look out the window and to listen, to be present because you can’t write about it if you weren’t there.
“There’s a certain amount of wryness to it, although there’s a serious moment in it, too, because it’s a choice we make: I will be here in my life.”
Newcomer will be at The Ark in Ann Arbor for an 8 p.m. show July 17. Tickets are $17.50. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.