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With its soothing refrain, "Every sleepy boy and every girl in every bed around the world," the song "Dreamland" appears on the lullaby collection Till Their Eyes Shine. Like fellow contributors including Gloria Estefan and Carole King, Carpenter believes children are affected by war and violence. This CD benefits the Voiceless Victims Project by the Institute for Cultural Understanding. Proceeds from Till Their Eyes Shine provide children with education, assistance, and support.
"It was a wonderful project to be associated with, for such a good cause, all good and classy and wonderful," says Carpenter in the throaty voice that's made her famous. "Then last year, HarperCollins approached me with the idea of taking the lyrics for 'Dreamland' and having them illustrated. I was thrilled. First and foremost, they were allowing me to continue to benefit the Voiceless Victims project. My part of it was done already. Dreamland is a book, but it's my song in book form. It's translated itself into a different medium."
The soft, glowing work of illustrator Julia Noonan really sold Carpenter on the project. The songwriter's lyrics gently encourage children to embrace all different kinds of people. Noonan's images take a little girl off to Dreamland where she meets and plays with children from other lands. "I found it important to fully illustrate the lyric that this is inclusive," Carpenter explains. "The world has more in it than blonde Gerber babies."
The performer considers her recognition of other cultures a turning point in her life, the moment she went from childhood innocence into awareness. "About age ten, we moved from the place where I was born, moved overseas. My sisters and I were fortunate to travel through Asia and Europe at very young ages. We confronted extraordinary beauty in Athens and unspeakable poverty in India. I still feel unable to reconcile that. I still feel haunted by being 11 years old and walking through the streets of Delhi. I understood there was a hell of a lot more to my world, a diversity of ideas and cultures. It's stayed with me." It has, indeed. What comes through in Carpenter's music is a sense that though she possesses the mind of an adult, her heart is that of a child's, where possibilities are endless, where the world is eternally new. The honesty and intimacy of recordings like her new CD, A Place in the World make her popular among adults. The same thing makes children love Dreamland.
Carpenter first thought she would sing a traditional lullaby for Till Their Eyes Shine, "but all I could think about was 'Rock-a-bye Baby,' 'When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall.' It's a gothic, awful thing. It's a nightmare. I thought it might be a challenge to do something I'd never done before, which was to write a lullaby." In contrast to "Rock-a-bye Baby," which might keep children up nights if they think about it, Dreamland sends them "to a really good place. I think it's more positive; it's a pretty benign and gentle story."
Stories have always figured in Carpenter's family, even more than music. "Everybody's tone deaf in my family," maintains the performer. "I don't really remember my folks singing to us, but they read to us." Carpenter continues the tradition and welcomes the chance to read to her flock of nieces and nephews. "We get to sit on the floor and go through books and stuff. They all really enjoy that time. Though they may know the story backwards and forwards, they're still keen about it. It's made me see how important it is to read to your children, not just for quality time, but to be able to impart something to them."
Carpenter wrote Dreamland with an aunt's expertise, making it appeal to both adults and children. She's "heard a lot of songs for kids, and they are clever and imaginative and they exercise a child's mind. I don't think you need to dumb down to a child, you merely have to be clear, you know?"
A graduate of Brown with a degree in American Civilization, Carpenter has maintained her love of reading and strives to be "intellectually curious, interested in a lot of things." "I'm a liberal arts junkie," she says and laughs.
She's also a top performer with a busy schedule. Living under a constant spotlight has made Carpenter wistful about the innocence of childhood and the freedom that comes with it. She cites a quote from Anne Tyler, who says she used to dream about being famous, picturing fame as a way to enter others' lives. What Tyler hadn't realized was it meant others would enter her life, as well. "The biggest misconception about fame," says Carpenter, "is that it's all really good for you. For those of us who are a bit shyer, and I put myself in that place, it's a real adjustment."
Carpenter has dedicated Dreamland to her nieces and nephews and envies them "being able to swing on a swing without being self-conscious, things like that, doing a somersault and not have people look at you funny." Her sisters' children give back to Carpenter in ways they don't even recognize. They reconnect her to her family and to herself.
"My older sister would play the CD with Dreamland for her twins when they were really small. It became this ritual, they wanted to hear Aunt Mary Chapin's song. One day, I was on the road, and my sister called me up and put the kids on, 'The sun goes down'," she sings, imitating her nephews' earnest, high-pitched voices. "I couldn't believe it, they just launched into it. I thought I was going to croak, it was so wonderful."
If you would like to know more about Till Their Eyes Shine and the Voiceless Victims project, contact Institute for Intercultural Understanding at (502)454-0607.
Ellen Kanner is a freelance writer in Miami.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.