Songs of shadow and light
Troubadour Lucy Kaplansky’s latest album is a tribute to all that she holds dear — and affirmation of the love that redeems even in the darkest of hours.
By Naila Francis
Lucy Kaplansky seems to have mastered the art of effective juxtaposition.
It was by no deliberate intent, but on her most recent album, “The Red Thread,” the singer−songwriter and acoustic guitarist charts the areas of hope and despair, and ultimately of the choice to live even in the midst of the deepest decay, with a seamless grace and poignancy.
It makes sense, considering the circumstances at the time of the album’s development. The New Yorker and her husband, Richard Litvin, with whom she co−wrote six of the tracks on “The Red Thread,” were at a bittersweet time in their lives. Ready to start a family, with plans under way to adopt a baby girl from China, they were also moving through a period of great pain. As first−hand witnesses to the trauma and tragedy caused by Sept. 11, their close proximity to Ground Zero renewed in them a sense of the preciousness of life and the importance of family, even as they struggled to cope with the aftershocks, to make sense of the incomprehensible.
And so on “The Red Thread,” a subtle fusion of folk, pop, rock and country, there are songs that speak directly to such times. On “Line In The Sand,” Kaplansky yearns for a “forgiving rain” to fall, washing away the line born of hatred and fueled by senseless acts of sacrifice committed “in the name of the holy land.” The haunting “Land Of The Living” turns a lens on a grieving New York, with its “carpets of flowers in candlelight” and “pictures of faces posted everywhere,” as Kaplansky observes taxi drivers kneeling down to pray at the airport. And despite the aching sadness of the song, she clings to hope, imagining their prayers to be for everyone affected by that tragic day while she utters a prayer of her own for a driver beaten up simply because he looks like “one of them.”
” ‘Land Of The Living’ − that felt like an accident, that song,” says Kaplansky. “I never intended to write a song about 9−11. I had this image that I’d seen at the airport of Muslim taxi drivers praying. I tried to do something with that image and I couldn’t. Then I was in this hotel room one day, and I thought maybe they’re praying for the rest of us. And the rest of the song is just like being a witness.”
Other songs capture the anticipation and sense of completion she felt by adopting. Kaplansky and Litvin brought home their daughter, Molly, in November 2003. On “This Is Home,” her warm alto, which easily alternates between vulnerability and power, imagines the day when her daughter, waiting in a world of impermanence, amid changing faces and fleeting concern for her well−being, can finally rest comfortably in the security of her parents’ love.
Despite such prevailing themes of the redemptive and healing power of love, Kaplansky, who performs Friday at Sellersville Theater 1894, says she never intended to make “The Red Thread” with a theme in mind.
The title track refers to the ancient Chinese belief that upon birth, invisible red threads reach out from a baby’s spirit to all the people who will play a significant role in that child’s life. The song itself honors the love Kaplansky’s mother, 81, has modeled for her.
“It’s kind of like when you write a song, you usually don’t know what it’s about until it’s done,” she says. “I started ‘The Red Thread’ as a tribute to my mother. It is a tribute to my mother, but halfway through that song, I literally found myself writing about my daughter Molly who I hadn’t met yet. That’s kind of the way the whole thing evolved. It just kind of came out of me in an unconscious manner.”
The album, which also includes covers such as the late Dave Carter’s “Cowboy Singer,” Bill Morrissey’s “Love Song/New York” and Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale’s “Hole In My Head” is Kaplansky’s fifth for Red House Records. And while it showcases her growth as an artist, with her ability to paint a picture with simple, evocative phrasing and an understated current of emotion, Kaplansky will be the first to say that motherhood has a way of shifting one’s focus to matters of greater importance.
“It’s changed everything,” she says. “It’s a completely new way of living. My most important thing is my life with my family and my life with my daughter. Singing is a wonderful way to make a living, but it’s a job, not an obsession.
Molly, who recently turned 2, seems to agree. Last year, Kaplansky took her daughter with her on a U.S. tour that included a series of benefit concerts to support Half the Sky, an organization that works to improve the lives of children in Chinese orphanages and other welfare institutions.
“My husband and I packed her up in the car and went on the road,” says Kaplansky. “Then at 18 months, she decided she really wanted to sleep in her own crib in her own room.”
That was the end of touring with baby.
“She needs routine really badly,” says Kaplansky, who was only too happy to comply.
Her music, however, will always remain one of her great loves. From her first listening encounter with The Beatles to her later discovery of Joni Mitchell, it has been her passion through most of her life.
“Joni Mitchell was an incredibly important discovery,” says Kaplansky. “The kind of writing she did, the
kind of singing she did − I really emulated her for a long time.”
Yet, when stardom beckoned after Kaplansky left Chicago and the bars she’d been singing in there for New York City, she was hesitant to embrace such success. In New York, she found herself at home in a community of songwriters and performers that included Suzanne Vega, Bill Morrissey, John Gorka and others. With a natural flair for harmony − which she showcases on “The Red Thread,” with Jonatha Brooke, Richard Shindell, Eliza Gilkyson and Gorka contributing vocals − she often performed as a duo with Shawn Colvin. But just as the momentum for a career in music began to build, Kaplansky, who had studied to become a therapist in college, dropped it all to pursue a doctorate in psychology.
“I was too conflicted unconsciously about becoming a singer−songwriter and a musician, and it took me years to figure that out,” she says. “And I did − with the help of a good therapist. I realized that music was what I loved to do.”
Fortunately, she had continued singing, even as she worked with mentally ill adults at a New York hospital as well as in her own private practice. So when she got together to produce a record with Colvin and her solo tapes got into the hands of Red House president Bob Feldman, Kaplansky was ready to be signed to the label.
She released her debut “The Tide” in 1994 and found herself so busy touring, she had to leave her psychology positions behind.
Her detour into that field, however, has been instrumental in shaping her as a songwriter.
“I definitely think having learned what I needed to learn to be a psychologist has helped me in general but also has given me more wisdom, more insight into how people function, what motivates them − and that’s got to inform what I do,” she says. “Music is a way of expressing our experiences, and I try to write and create something that is meaningful to me.
“There is an audience out there that is hungry for something more interesting and meaningful, and you have to find ways to make the music interesting to yourself,” she says. “Otherwise it won’t be interesting to others.”
– The Intelligencer
2/24/05
Molly, who recently turned 2, seems to agree. Last year, Kaplansky took her daughter with her on a U.S. tour
that included a series of benefit concerts to support Half the Sky, an organization that works to improve the
lives of children in Chinese orphanages and other welfare institutions.
“My husband and I packed her up in the car and went on the road,” says Kaplansky. “Then at 18 months, she
decided she really wanted to sleep in her own crib in her own room.”
That was the end of touring with baby.
“She needs routine really badly,” says Kaplansky, who was only too happy to comply.
Her music, however, will always remain one of her great loves. From her first listening encounter with The
Beatles to her later discovery of Joni Mitchell, it has been her passion through most of her life.
“Joni Mitchell was an incredibly important discovery,” says Kaplansky. “The kind of writing she did, the
kind of singing she did − I really emulated her for a long time.”
Yet, when stardom beckoned after Kaplansky left Chicago and the bars she’d been singing in there for New
York City, she was hesitant to embrace such success. In New York, she found herself at home in a
community of songwriters and performers that included Suzanne Vega, Bill Morrissey, John Gorka and
others. With a natural flair for harmony − which she showcases on “The Red Thread,” with Jonatha Brooke,
Richard Shindell, Eliza Gilkyson and Gorka contributing vocals − she often performed as a duo with Shawn
Colvin. But just as the momentum for a career in music began to build, Kaplansky, who had studied to
become a therapist in college, dropped it all to pursue a doctorate in psychology.
“I was too conflicted unconsciously about becoming a singer−songwriter and a musician, and it took me
years to figure that out,” she says. “And I did − with the help of a good therapist. I realized that music was
what I loved to do.”
Fortunately, she had continued singing, even as she worked with mentally ill adults at a New York hospital as
well as in her own private practice. So when she got together to produce a record with Colvin and her solo
tapes got into the hands of Red House president Bob Feldman, Kaplansky was ready to be signed to the label.
She released her debut “The Tide” in 1994 and found herself so busy touring, she had to leave her psychology
positions behind.
Her detour into that field, however, has been instrumental in shaping her as a songwriter.
Songs