Mary Chapin Carpenter on the power of song

Mary Chapin Carpenter had an amazing run of success in the 1990s, setting a record for winning four consecutive Grammys as top female country vocalist. Country music was a lot different then, though, allowing for Carpenter’s smart, mature brand of folk and pop informed songwriting and histrionic-free singing to reach a mainstream audience.

Carpenter became a superstar in 1992 with her album “Come On Come On,” which includes the Top 5 country singles “I Feel Lucky,” “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her,” “I Take My Chances” (all Carpenter co-writes), and her cover of Lucinda Williams’ “Passionate Kisses.” In addition to the tracks off “Come On Come On,” Carpenter’s numerous country hits from the late 1980s and 1990s include “Quittin’ Time,” “Never Had it So Good,” “Down at the Twist and Shout,” “Shut Up and Kiss Me” and “Tender When I Want to Be.”

When Carpenter plays the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall in Sarasota on Friday attendees will surely hear a bunch of those timeless hits but the material off the singer/songwriter’s excellent new album “The Things That We Are Made Of” should prove equally engaging. Here’s a lightly edited transcript from our recent phone interview.

Congratulation on your outstanding new album “The Things That We Are Made Of.” To me, at least, it’s really a beautiful meditation on coming to terms with one’s self, with your past, learning to forgive and accept. Am I anywhere close to describing what you were aiming for? 

You’re wonderfully close, and close is actually the wrong word. You’ve responded in a way I would hope these themes would come across. Thank you for giving such a close assessment. 

My pleasure. What inspired this album? 

Nothing specific but at the same time all the things you named are necessary passages as we grow older and those are experiences we all have in common: How we go about and accept and reckon is up to each individual but I don’t think you could get through life without dealing with those things. What’s that quote (attributed to Socrates)? “The unexamined life is not worth living.”  

“Something Tamed, Something Wild,” the first song on the new album, is as catchy as anything that you sent up the country charts in the 1990s. I see you’ve been playing it on this tour. What kind of reaction does it get? 

You know, it’s a song I felt was important to be the first because I feel it’s a declaration of sorts: This is what life looks like to me now and it addresses all the things you said at the beginning of the interview. I don’t know the last time I might have thought of anything as catchy but I love playing it. So far, I’ve placed it at the beginning of the shows and ... I always feel I’m the worst to be asked about how a song is being received. I only have a certain perspective and it’s different from any place in the venue. 

“Hand on my Back” (also from the “The Things That We Are Made Of”) is one of the most poignant songs I’ve heard in awhile. Was that a difficult song to write, and have you performed it on stage yet?  

I played that song for a couple years after I first wrote it, before we released the record. What it’s about to me — I don’t like to dictate how people interpret the music — but what I was trying to speak to is that we all have our tribe and when we recognize someone in some way, a fleeting stranger and the way they look at you, something that signals they're your kind, it makes everything a little less hard, a little less lonely. We all want to be truly seen, to be truly known by someone before we die. That song is about that moment when you feel it. 

When you were writing songs like “I Feel Lucky,” “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her,” and “I Take My Chances” for “Come on Come On” (1992) did you have a sense you and your collaborators were onto something special? 

Oh gosh, no. The idea when you’re sitting in a room with someone writing is I feel like just writing for us in that moment the most authentic song; not trying to kid or fool anyone. Subsequently, when those songs went to become radio hits you could have knocked me over with a feather, honest to goodness. I still feel that way. I just can’t believe it. It’s unfathomable. And it’s fantastic. It’s so wonderful those songs reached so many people. Because of the power of song I can play so many places. I’m indebted to those songs and those fans who’ve allowed me to continue.  

You’re such an eclectic songwriter with the folk, country, and pop influences. Which singer-songwriter is your greatest influence? 

It’s hard just off the top of my head, and at the risk of taking the easy way, I have to say Bob Dylan. He does represent a distinctive, cultural shift of a proportion unknown in our culture. If I think of myself as a singer/songwriter he and a few others, like Joni Mitchell, created it. Bob Dylan owes a huge debt to Woody Guthrie but after it’s all said and done Dylan has done more for the idea of a voice and guitar than anyone in our culture during the last 50 years.

Mary Chapin Carpenter

8 p.m. Friday; Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, 777 N. Tamiami Trail; $16-$61; 941-953-3368; vanwezel.org