Where you live?
Tracy Chapman
Change
Talk to you
3, 000 miles
Going back
Don’t dwell
Never yours
America
Love’s proof
Before Easter
Taken
Be and Be not afraid
Lose your
Grammy winner Tracy Chapman’s Where you live? is the best investment that I have ever made. I always though that such honour would always remain with George Michael’s Older. However, this album has changed all that.
She sings like a canary. Her voice is sweet. This is where I would like to stop showering anymore praise for an artist as talented as Tracy. This album is a masterpiece and one of the rarest ever collections because of reasons other than just Tracy’s sweet voice. Where you live? is a mystery worth being associated with.
The entire album is loaded with tracks out of this world. The lyrics are universal and so very normal and yet difficult to put in words. Thats the magic I am talking about. Tracy easily paints the pictures in the form of a song. She weaves her magic not just through her voice but lyrics and as well as through her guitar. The instruments played in this album are used not because it is mandatory to have them. All instruments have been aptly used. In one of the songs Tracy has even used her claps as a background music!
There is so much energy in this album. Listening to Tracy’s tracks in Where you live? I would often associate and compare Tracy’s previous work. Her present album can be compared to an active volcano. Its like Tracy now is controlling a spaceship while earlier she was flying a Concorde. While earlier she had equally deep meaning lyrics and displayed her skills with strumming the guitar. Here she more or less does the same thing but in a more charged up and an intimate manner. She is in absolute control of her powers – music. I hope you guys understand what I mean.
Why the name Where you live?
Tracy began working on this album in the year 2000. Though all the songs are narrowly connected the album has been so named because all of these songs seem to suggest a common theme. The inspiration for such a name should not be taken literally. Where you live? should be seen as a state of mind, being or the heart. Its about how one feels about oneself.
It is difficult not to fall in love with this album. My favorite track from the album is Change. A track that absolutely rocks. It drives me nuts every time I play it while driving or even at home. All the instruments (electric guitar, drums, electric bass). Five seconds after the song breaks Tracy sings posing the query -
If you knew that you will die today
If you saw the face of God and Love
Would you change?
Would you change?
If you knew that love can break your heart
When you are down so low you cannot fall
Would you change?
Having heard this track I felt that I have had actually so far been musically claustrophobic. I had been waiting for an album like this.
Change comes to an end. There is a hard pressed temptation to rewind and listen the track again. But the next track is so gentle that you dont mind slipping on it. You don’t mind kissing the track, stomping your feet wildly or even ejaculating your soul out from your body while karaoking along with Talk to you. All you want to do is listen and sing along to this brilliant piece of work.
Gotta talk to you baby?
Talk to you now.
Say is it too late?
See me again, work it out
I have got a feeling
Feelings don’t lie
The next track is another object of my obsession these days. Its a typical TC kind of song. Slow and sexy and throttling at top speed when it comes to finding the deep meaning. Instruments used (clarinet, hand claps, electric guitar, piano) do a wonderful job.
I am 3, 000 miles away
knock you down, make you bleed....
There are other tracks too. All of them my favorite and all of them mysterious. There is a track called America which cannot be missed. This album is about ’everything’s possible’ with music and Tracy. In many of the tracks listening Tracy pluck the guitar chords transforms the listeners to a different world. A world of music. Tracy through Where you live? once again proves that there no boundaries in music. However, there is a condition – each time you perform you gotta out do your last performance. Tracy’s previous songs which she released in 1988 (Fast car, Taking about a revolution) are good but this one is just great. Tracy truly is a fab songwriter and a musician. This album is a mix of both delicate and strong emotions. Delicate in songs like Don’t dwell and strong in Change.