Still Wild About Harry
When I was a young adult (early 70s) I became a big fan of Harry Chapin. I think he’s absolutely the best singer songwriter ever. He was born on this day, December 7, 1942. If he’d lived, he would be 80 years old today.
His hits, Taxi and WOLD, drew me to his albums. The first one I purchased was his third released, Verities and Balderdash. All his songs tell a story and even though almost all are sad, they are so realistic. I connected quickly with the lyrics. The stories were of ordinary people living ordinary lives. I related well to them.
From that album, I really connected with “What Made America Famous”. It still resonates with me today. Back then, there was still residual unrest and protests between liberals (like hippies) and conservatives (older generations). The song is about a small town with the usual businesses and fire station. There’s also a run-down decrepit building run by a slumlord and housed people of color and hippies. The hippies were in constant conflict with the police and “the establishment”.
I remembered all I’d learned about racial and social injustice from independent reading and understood where the hippies came from. However, I didn’t agree with their tactics. They painted a swastika on the firehouse door, and I thought that was the wrong thing to do. It inspired possible retaliatory revenge in that a fire broke out in that overcrowded unsafe building.
The fire went out of control. People on the upper floors crawled out their windows and onto the outside ledges. One of the lines goes “me and my girl and a couple of kids were clinging like bats to the edge.” The town plumber was a volunteer fireman and he rushed to the station with the others, crying out “Come on, let’s go!” But the other volunteers saw the building that was burning, remembered the swastika incident, and told the plumber they didn’t need to rush.
The plumber, though, jumped into the fire truck and went by himself to rescue the people on the ledge. He raised the ladder so that the residents, hippies, and all, could climb down to safety. The last lyrics went like this:
I never thought that a fat
man's face
Would ever look so sweet
I shook his hand in the scene
that made America famous
And a smile from the heart that made America great
We spent the rest of that night in the home of this man
That we'd never known before
It's funny when you get that close, it's kind of hard to hate
I went to sleep with the hope
that made America famous
I had the kind of a dream that maybe they're still trying to teach in school
Of the America that made America famous...
And of the people who just might understand
That how together yes we can
Create a country better than
The one we have made of this land
We have the choice to make each man
Who dares to dream, reaching out his hand
A prophet or just a crazy, damn dreamer of a fool Yes a crazy fool
And something burnin'
somewhere
Does anybody care?
Is anybody there?
Is anybody there?
So, wow. I thought to myself: even though I mostly side with the hippies, I want to be like that plumber. His was an act of humanity and it didn’t matter that he was saving disruptive hippies and people of color. I want to be like him. I try to be like him.
That’s just one of Harry Chapin’s songs that resonates with me. Almost every one of them has meaning to me. The one I identify with most nowadays is called “Dreams Go By”. It begins with two teenagers dreaming about what they want to be. They marry and don’t follow their dreams because they’re busy with building their lives and having children. Now they are older, retired and enjoying visits with their grandchildren. Yes, their dreams went by the wayside and that’s sad, but they are happily married and content with their lives.
Harry Chapin came from a musical family. When he performed, two of his brothers joined him and other band members became close friends. Their anthem was called “Circle”.
In addition to being a storyteller singer, Harry was a huge humanitarian. He founded Long Island Cares which provides food and necessities to people in need. The Harry Foundation expands to partner with other organizations to help fight hunger. He said, “When in doubt, do something.” He did a lot of somethings. A third to half of his concerts’ profits went to charities.
Harry Chapin was scheduled to perform a benefit concert at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow on July 16, 1981. At that time, I was sharing an apartment with my cousin Anne. We’d discussed going to the concert if we could. Traffic could be very heavy on Long Island and East Meadow was about an hour away from our apartment.
I’d finished working as an interpreter for a deaf client attending a vocational technical school around 3 p.m. and was driving home on the Northern Parkway when the music was interrupted to announce that Harry Chapin had been killed in an accident on the Long Island Expressway. I nearly went off the road. The news triggered a panic attack and I had to pull off the parkway to calm myself. I thought no no no no, it can’t be. Not Harry.
But it was true. Details were never clear. Did he have a medical emergency? Whatever the reason he began slowing down and changing lanes, he collided with a big truck and ran off the expressway. His little car burst into flames and good Samaritans who stopped to help pulled him from the car. He was unconscious. A helicopter flew him to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.
In 1987, he was posthumously awarded a Congressional Gold Medal for his philanthropic work. His widow, Sandy Chapin, has taken charge of the Harry Chapin Foundation. He co-founded Why Hunger and that work continues today too.
I loved his music and what he stood for.
I still miss him.
Except for during the Christmas season, I listen to some of his music every day.
