Forgotten Songs of the '70s: Harry Chapin
Forgotten Songs of the ‘70s: Harry Chapin
Most people remember Harry Chapin for his humanitarian efforts and for having two major hits, “Taxi” and “Cat’s in the Cradle.” But Chapin’s best songs are completely forgotten. For his second album, Sniper and Other Love Songs, he dove into recent history to create a nearly ten-minute ‘story song’ about a crazed shooter from Texas. His name was Charles Whitman.
Whitman was a University of Texas student who suffered from severe mental difficulties and one day in 1967, he climbed to the top of the University’s clock tower and started shooting people on the ground. By the time the police took him out, he’d killed 15 people and injured many more. If one is not familiar about the case, Harry Chapin decided to take it upon himself to tell the story, but to cloak it to where he didn’t drop Whitman’s name but it’s a story a lot of people now can clearly relate to. In a sick way, Whitman was one of the first of the ‘school shooters’ which became so prevalent in the decades to come.
Starting off acoustically, Chapin starts off with a slow drawl but then gets into the story and automatically, the listener is captivated. As the song progresses, everything gets faster and quicker and Chapin’s voice gets rougher. Then about halfway through, the song breaks down and Chapin goes into a mourning wail, taking on the voice of the main character talking to his mother and launches into her, screaming, “I HATE YOU!!!”
Then the song begins the home stretch and Chapin’s vocals become stronger as the character realizes this is the end and as the song ends, the character begins his decent to wherever he’s going; listening to the outro, one could believe he’s going to heaven or he’s going to hell. Ultimately, Chapin leaves it up to the listener and after they’ve finished with nearly ten minutes, they are in for a lot of thinking. But that’s the song’s power, getting you to think about a tragic event in history while saying to oneself, “this is one of the coolest songs I’ve ever heard.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT1cxP3JT0c&feature=channel_page
Most people remember Harry Chapin for his humanitarian efforts and for having two major hits, “Taxi” and “Cat’s in the Cradle.” But Chapin’s best songs are completely forgotten. For his second album, Sniper and Other Love Songs, he dove into recent history to create a nearly ten-minute ‘story song’ about a crazed shooter from Texas. His name was Charles Whitman.
Whitman was a University of Texas student who suffered from severe mental difficulties and one day in 1967, he climbed to the top of the University’s clock tower and started shooting people on the ground. By the time the police took him out, he’d killed 15 people and injured many more. If one is not familiar about the case, Harry Chapin decided to take it upon himself to tell the story, but to cloak it to where he didn’t drop Whitman’s name but it’s a story a lot of people now can clearly relate to. In a sick way, Whitman was one of the first of the ‘school shooters’ which became so prevalent in the decades to come.
Starting off acoustically, Chapin starts off with a slow drawl but then gets into the story and automatically, the listener is captivated. As the song progresses, everything gets faster and quicker and Chapin’s voice gets rougher. Then about halfway through, the song breaks down and Chapin goes into a mourning wail, taking on the voice of the main character talking to his mother and launches into her, screaming, “I HATE YOU!!!”
Then the song begins the home stretch and Chapin’s vocals become stronger as the character realizes this is the end and as the song ends, the character begins his decent to wherever he’s going; listening to the outro, one could believe he’s going to heaven or he’s going to hell. Ultimately, Chapin leaves it up to the listener and after they’ve finished with nearly ten minutes, they are in for a lot of thinking. But that’s the song’s power, getting you to think about a tragic event in history while saying to oneself, “this is one of the coolest songs I’ve ever heard.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT1cxP3JT0c&feature=channel_page
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