Around America With Harry Chapin Quiz

Answer: Dayton, Ohio

"Mr Tanner was a cleaner from a town in the Mid West
And of all the cleaning shops around he'd made his the best..."

This was the tale of the proprietor of a cleaning shop who loved to sing while he worked.
He was persuaded by his customers to try showcasing his talent in public performance

As the lyrics explained:
"But the critics were concise, it only took four lines.
And no one could accuse them of being over kind.
Mr. Martin Tanner, Baritone, of Dayton, Ohio made his Town Hall debut last night. He came well prepared, but unfortunately his presentation was not up to contemporary professional standards.
His voice lacks the range of tonal color necessary to make it consistently interesting.
Full time consideration of another endeavor might be in order..."

Harry based the song on a music review that he spotted in a newspaper.

Answer: Scranton, Pennsylvania

"It was just after dark when the truck started down
The hill that leads into Scranton Pennsylvania.
Carrying thirty thousand pounds of bananas..."

This was the tale of a young truck driver "carrying the next day's tasty fruits for everyone in that coal-scarred city" but crashed and "lost his head,
Not to mention an arm or two before he stopped.
And he slid for four hundred yards
Along the hill that leads into Scranton, Pennsylvania.
All those thirty thousand pounds of bananas..."

It was one of the best-loved Chapin songs among concert goers.

Answer: San Francisco, California

"It was raining hard in 'Frisco
I needed one more fare to make my night
A lady up ahead waved to flag me down
She got in at the light..."

16 Parkside Lane, San Francisco, featured in the two linked songs "Taxi" and Sequel". "Taxi" was Harry Chapin's first single.

It was the story of a taxi driver who picked up a beautiful young woman one rainy night to then discover she had been a former lover.

In "Sequel", which he recorded some years later, he revisited the star-crossed lovers, picking up their story after 10 years.

Chapin called his lovers Harry and Sue. There was some reality behind the songs. Chapin had obtained a taxi driver's licence in New York City and Sue was based on a former girlfriend.

"Taxi" reached number 24 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1972 and "Sequel" number 23 in 1980.

Answer: North Dakota

"At first I did not think it could be you.
But you're the only one that got off the train.
So you must be my wife Miss Annie Halsey
Yes, yes, I guess I am your husband,
Hello I'm Harry Crane..."

In America in the 1800s, there was a population imbalance, with too many unmarried young women in the east and too many single young men in the west.

Harry Chapin told of a situation when a young woman accepted an invitation to go west to meet and start a life with a man she had never met. [What happened in reality was that men in the west advertised in eastern newspapers for wives. They would give information about themselves and what they were looking for. Interested women would write back, often they were from a poor background with few prospects at home. On other occasions women would advertise in western newspapers for a husband.]

"You know I'm just a dirt man from the North Dakota plains.
You're one girl from the city who's been thrown out on her own
I'm standing here not sure of what to say to you
'Cepting Mail Order Annie, lets you and me go home."

Answer: Boise, Idaho

"Hello Honey, it's me
What did you think when you heard me back on the radio?
What did the kids say when they knew it was their long lost daddy-o?.."

This became one of Harry Chapin's best-known songs. It was the story of a radio DJ whose marriage failed because of his work.

He parted from his wife and children but then tried a reconciliation some years later. The song told of what had happened to him.

"I am the morning DJ at W*O*L*D
Playing all the hits for you wherever you may be
The bright good-morning voice who's heard but never seen
Feeling all of forty-five going on fifteen

The drinking I did on my last big gig, it made my voice go low
They said that they liked the young sound when they let me go
So I drifted on down to Tulsa, Oklahoma to do me a late night talk show
Now I worked my way down home again, here to Boise, Idaho
That's how this business goes"

The song got a lot of airplay on radio stations, perhaps because the DJs identified with the hero.

It reached number 36 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1973.

Answer: Mobile, Alabama

"The kid heard the word up in Brooklyn.
It was his second year of medical school.
He went and stashed some jeans into his guitar case,
His father said, "You're a fool".

But the boy jumped on board a Greyhound bus,
It took him two days to get to Mobile,
And though it took two weeks to track the old man down,
He never doubted that the rumor was real..."

This was the tale of a young man who sought out a legendary blues guitarist in order to learn how to play in that genre.

He was told: "To play the blues, boy, you got to live 'em
Got your dues, boy, you know you got to give 'em
Got to start sweet like a slow blues rhythm
Like a heartbeat you'll always be with 'em
When you're married to the blues, boy,
Your guitar is your wife.
It's like that fine old woman
Who you're faithful to for life."

Answer: Pocono, New York

"This phone's growing into my ear
I made three hundred calls today..."

This was Harry Chapin's story about a realtor's work for the 'Pocono Land Development Company' making cold calls to try to drum up interest in property for sale.

"A quarter-acre plot, that's what I've got for you
Nineteen ninety-five, four hundred dollars down
And just ten bucks a week
It's two short hours from New York City,
A Pocano Land Site green and pretty.
There's lakes there, and trout streams,
Mountain views, Country Dreams,
Country Dreams."

As with many of the characters Chapin created, the unnamed salesman was in an unfulfilling job, just trying to make it to the end of the day and the wife who was waiting for him.

"We dreamed our dreams in college, girl
Back then we thought we should,
And we promised that we would save the world
Way back then we thought we could.
I know you love your teaching now, but I wish you'd understand,
There aren't that many jobs around, I'm doing the best I can."

Answer: Minneapolis at 1 AM Chicago at 3

I'm a strummin' fool out in the sticks
For the glory and the bread
And you're wise enough to let me sing
This music in my head
And if there's any way to get there
Strumming head on out
I go driven hard to pick up old
222 en route"

After "Taxi" became a hit Harry Chapin played a lot of concerts all over the USA.

They took him far from his New York State home, and Harry was not unknown to "dally" with some of the young women he met.

That ended when his wife found Harry's little black book of contacts. After that he made strenuous effort to get home after each concert.

Peter M. Coan, who wrote a biography that Harry Chapin approved of - but which his widow tried to block, explained in an interview why he had included the 'warts and all' details: "The problem that Harry had with chasing skirts, first, it's a problem among most music performers. But, besides that, it was sort of an ongoing theme within the family and the marriage throughout the years. When Harry became famous, he had to deal with the stardom. Girls were calling him and writing him letters. The family was sort of shock-treated from the whole thing. They knew about the 'Black Book'". [http://www.classicbands.com/HarryChapinInterview.html]

'North West 222' was one of the flights Chapin used to get home to New York.

In the break he sang: "Minneapolis at 1 AM Chicago at 3
It's Detroit at 5 then it's New York City
Where she's waitin' for me."

Answer: Gloucester Harbor Sound

"Dogtown" was one of Harry Chapin's strangest songs (another was "Sniper'). Neither had comfortable settings.

"Up in Massachusetts There's a little spit of land.
The men who make the maps, yes, they call the place Cape Ann.
The men who do the fishing call it Gloucester Harbor Sound,
But the women left behind, they call the place Dogtown.

"The men go out for whaling, past the breakers and the fogs.
The women stay home waiting they're protected by the dogs.
A tough old whaler woman who had seen three husbands drown,
Polled the population and she named the place Dogtown."

Answer: Forest Hills

"I'm halfway to heaven and my home in Forest Hills..."

This was the tale of an office worker who had had an unadventurous job. Married with a family he found life slowing down, with no excitement.

Until he got a new secretary.

"Ahh someone played a trick on me.
They sent this little girl to me,
She is my new secretary
And she's something to see.
Yeah She's a nice girl, but it's a young world
And she lives her life so free, and she sure gets through to me...

Realising that this new secretary would be "available" to him if he wanted her, he decided to take a chance.

"In my head all my life I've been a sinner,
And in my bed with just my wife I'm still a beginner,
But tomorrow night I'm taking that little girl out to dinner!"