Mary Chapin Carpenter - Dancing in the Dark - Non-Album Tracks (1996-1998)

I've gotten a pretty good reaction in comments from the previous Mary Chapin Carpenter stray tracks albums I've posted, so I'll post this next one sooner rather than later.

For everyone: if you haven't heard her version of Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark," you should download this just to listen to that one song. Springsteen does it as a fast-paced mindless dance song, wheres Carpenter slows it way down and completely transforms it into a ballad. In the new form, you can easily pay attention to the lyrics, which turn out to be very different than they seemed at a casual glance. It's a brilliant cover. it's a real shame it only appeared as an obscure B-side.

The other songs are all solid too. Frankly, it frustrates me that these are all non-album tracks, because her career momentum sputtered when she didn't release a new album between 1996 and 1999, and even then her new album was a greatest hits of sorts. This shows she had the songs for another album by 1998, at least, and this is just what we know about. There probably is more in her private vaults.

Another frustration is that she didn't put out her cover of Van Morrison's "Real Real Gone" in any form whatsoever. This is a bootleg of a live version. It really cooks. I put "edit" in the title because she talks over the entire intro, but I managed to remove her words by piecing together the underlying music from various places that it repeats elsewhere in the song.

I'm guessing she didn't want to put out an album with something similar to this bunch of songs because most of them are covers. That's another shame, because I don't have any problem with covers if they're done well. There are some nice originals here though, such as her song "Dead Man Walking," which was done for the movie of the same name.

"Real Real Gone" is the only unreleased song here, so the sound quality maintains a high standard throughout.

01 Real Real Gone [Edit] (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
02 Dead Man Walking [A Dream like This] (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
03 Wishing (Mary Chapin Carpenter & Kevin Montgomery)
04 I'll Never Fall in Love Again (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
05 Somewhere Down Below the Mason-Dixon Line (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
06 Pretty Polly (Darol Anger & Mary Chapin Carpenter)
07 It's Only Love (Mary Chapin Carpenter & Randy Scruggs)
08 Oh Lonesome Me (Mary Chapin Carpenter with Mark Knopfler & Chet Atkins)
09 Dancing in the Dark (Mary Chapin Carpenter)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15102258/MaryChapC_1996-1998_DancngintheDark_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from a 1996 concert.