ALL MY LIFE'S A CIRCLE

by Harry Chapin

Autobiographical statement on a concert program, circa 1980

Arrived December 7, 1942, the obligatory first step to a life story. I become part of a large, exciting, sprawling, multifaceted brood. The second of my mother's six sons, followed by 3 more boys and 3 girls from my father's later marriages. A "rich little poor boy" childhood-- with few creature comforts, but a family that provided all the love and stimulation I could absorb.

Childhood in New York City in the 40's-- on West 11th Street by the Hudson River Piers. Lived in a 3 room apartment above a longshoreman's office on a block halfway between the Maximum Security Federal Penitentiary and the M&M Trucking Company. But each summer, for three magical months, we escaped to Grandfather Burke's farm in New Jersey. No extra money was available in a family of artists, but still all the kingdoms of the mind were opened early-- where every mental space was touched upon, except boredom.

The 50's brought changes; Father Jim, a jazz drummer who played with the likes of Jimmy Dorsey and Woody Herman, was on the road, and the marriage wasn't working. A stepfather appeared on the scene and we moved to Brooklyn Heights. I joined the Grace Church Choir with younger brothers Tom and Steve, and started taking trumpet lessons. The summer of '57 brought two gigantic discoveries, girls and guitars. At my cousin's barn a copy of "The Weavers at Carnegie Hall" played constantly, and the trumpet lessons faded away. I find an old banjo in the attic and start playing. Tom buys a guitar, and Steve starts playing four string tenor guitar, tipple, and finally a stand-up bass. My older brother James, although an occasional piano and bongo player, foregoes the music craze and goes on to a career in American History and politics. But folk music, the ultimate social weapon, becomes my full time passion.

In 1958, the Chapin Brothers, singing 3-part pubescent harmony, go public for the first time. Reaction is generous enough to sink the hook in deeper. Soon there are $20 gigs at neighborhood parties, band breaks and society dances. The Chapin Brothers become junior folkies, on the periphery of the Greenwich Village hotbed of an exploding folk boom.

In 1960, high school is over, and in the next three years I manage to spend 3 months in the Air Force Academy before resigning, 3 terms at Cornell before busting out, one week punching checks at a bank before terminal boredom, and packing film crates at Drew Associates, film-makers, where I work my way up to Assistant Film Editor. However, by the end of '63, I am in love and thinking I should give one more shot at finishing college. But my second attempt at Cornell, and my first attempt at a love affair follow the same pattern-- pyrotechnic beginnings followed by gradual decline. Ironically this educational and emotional merry-go-round makes a fertile climate for my first songs. They fall into the usual categories for young prophets: protest songs and lugubrious ballads of unrequited love. It takes 4 terms to bust out this time.

By 1965 I'm beginning to realize that I am not going to progress through life following the normal patterns. My brothers and I decide to get serious about our music. All the guitar playing that has been a crutch to our social lives, that has made us a couple of bucks on the side, that has given us something to do besides drinking beer on street corners, now is put to the test. We resolve to become full-time professionals. It's a summer of airborn dreams, potentials and performances, and yes, it felt like somehow, somewhere, sometime we were going to make it.

Dad joined the group that summer and backed us up on drums. We were still green but we were definitely different; part folk, part rock, topped with Grace Church harmonies and a jazz beat from the old man swinging in behind. But in September, Vietnam forces Tom and Steve back to College, and I'm back at square one.

A film job surfaces and it's 6 months in L.A. making airline commercials. Then back to N.Y. to work on boxing films with Cayton, Inc. For the next 2 1/2 years I immerse myself in the history of the fight game and by the Spring of 67 I tackle a major project, "Legendary Champions," a theatrical documentary feature. It later wins the New York and Atlanta film festival gold prizes as best documentary and is nominated for an Academy Award as best feature documentary.

Then its off to Ethiopia with Jim Lipscomb for a documentary on the World Bank's impact on the underdeveloped world. But again, I leave the film business, this time to try writing a Broadway musical. During that summer and fall I write the first four versions of a musical (the ninth version opened on Broadway in 1975).

November, 1968, Sandy Gaston and I are married and set up house in Long Island with her three kids, Jaime, Jono and Jason. I try a career as a free lance documentary film-maker and spend my time producing and directing short films for IBM and Time-Life. When the 70's begin, I team up with Jim Lipscomb again for a one hour film, this time about the America's Cup 12 meter yacht international sailing competition, "Dual In The Wind."

By late Fall, 1970, out of work, I start writing songs again, although in a completely different style. My cinema verite experiences and the quest for interesting film stories leads me into a narrative form of song writing. it is fun writing again, and my brothers Tom and Steve, having formed their own group, are willing to perform some of my material. The end of 70 arrives, there are no film jobs and the movie industry is an economic disaster area. My daughter Jennie is 6 months on the way to being born and I panic. I set into New York City to sign up for a hack license. On the way I meet an old girlfriend who has married money instead of becoming an actress, and I contemplate the irony of "flying in my taxi." But the day I'm supposed to start driving fate again intervenes and I'm offered three film jobs. Relieved, I plunge back into work, but find that the songs are still coming.

Soon the films are finished, and with a couple of dollars in the bank I put together a group to give life to my songs. With a cello player, a lead guitar, and big John Wallace on bass we started rehearsing. The perfect opportunity to play presented itself when Tom and Steve decided to rent the village Gate for 10 weeks of the 1971 summer season. I opened the act, playing at first to about 10 people. This led me to treat performances like a gathering of old friends sharing stories. Gradually the audience grew, there were good reviews, and record company representatives dropped by (after much prodding). Unbelievably, the possibility of a large record contract loomed, as companies jockeyed for positions, and by November we signed with Elektra. The next 6 months were a whirlwind, flying to L.A. to produce the first record, playing the first Elektra convention in Palm Springs, the release of the "Heads and Tails" [sic] album, playing the prestige club racket around the country, and then "Taxi" breaks into the tight AM airways and becomes the most requested song in America for 10 weeks in a row. Songs, albums, concerts and benefits followed in 73 and 74. By then my son Josh was born, Sandy wrote the lyrics for "Cat's in the Cradle" and in December 1974 it became the #1 record in the country.

So here I was, a new career going strong, faced with the questions of what to do with it. All my brave words of the 60's about the social responsibility of successful people became bluffs to be called. I believe that success brings responsibility. It also does not bring immunity to the consequences of our quickening march toward oblivion. The bottom line is that all of us should be involved in our futures to create a world that our children will want to live in. I met Father Bill Ayres in 1973, and after 15 months of meetings and planning sessions we founded World Hunger Year (WHY), a non-profit organization dedicated to giving a greater visibility to and higher priority for the solutions to mankind's greatest problem, world hunger. A year long effort that began in 1977, by WHY, the Food Policy Center (our Washington based lobbying organization), and myself, has resulted in the formation of a presidential Commission on World Hunger. I have been appointed by President Carter to the Commission whose mandate is: why, after 20 years of programs and expenditures of billions of dollars, has there been no significant progress in dealing with the hunger problem?

This commitment to end world hunger, and my music and story songs, are ways of dealing with the world as I see it. I'm playing 200 concerts per year-- half of them benefits-- all of them attempts at getting across the footlights to people I would enjoy spending time with in non-concert situations. And over the past 4 years of musical fun, millions of dollars have been raised for things I believe in. Telling stories of our time, building a lasting body of work, new songs, new records, new audiences, new challenges, and still that painfully exciting process of growth that can make one's life into a richly woven tapestry.

Pulled quote:

"It's got to be the going not the getting there that's good." - "Greyhound," Heads and Tails [sic].