Chapin tried to prove what one life could be worth -- and succeeded

I think it was 1973 when my friend Bill Madden introduced me to the music of Harry Chapin.

Bill was a wonderful singer/songwriter who did some beautiful songs of his own, but he had a few songs by big names that he did very well. As recently as a few years ago, he posted a video clip of him singing Paul Simon's "Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard" at a club in the town in Florida where he now lives. That seems to have become his favorite to perform, but I remember him doing a beautiful job back in the day on "Taxi," the song that gave Chapin his breakthrough.

I started buying every Harry Chapin record I could find, and while I was happy that he had a breakthrough No. 1 single in 1974 with "Cat's in the Cradle," I never felt it was one of his better songs. I loved his album "Portrait Gallery" and especially loved the first song on the album, "Dreams Go By," about two people who had a good life together even though neither's youthful dreams came true.




I remember being in London for Christmas 1977. It was a strange week to be there; the holidays made it difficult to do much real sightseeing, so we saw movies and plays, we visited wonderful bookstores and one afternoon we found ourselves in a record store back in those days of vinyl.

We were living in Vienna, and in those days before Skype and the Internet, it was tough to keep up with what was happening back home in the States. That's why I could look inside a box of record albums at our little commissary back in Austria and find an album called "Born to Run" that I had only barely heard of.

Harry Chapin

But there I was in London, fishing through some albums and finding a brand-new Harry Chapin double album called "Dance Band on the Titanic." It was nearly a week till I could play it, but once back home I played it over and over ... and over.

I particularly loved the finale, a 14-plus minute song called "There Only Was One Choice." It was about singing, particularly about singing to make a difference the way the greats like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger did for so long.

Chapin mattered. After he had established himself, he began working to fight world hunger. Especially in his last few years, what he did was do every other concert for himself. The others he donated all the money he made to charity.

I was fortunate enough to see him in concert once, it must have been 1974 or '75, at the Cellar Door in Washington, D.C. I always thought there would be other opportunities. He was only seven years older than I was. Our birthdays were four days apart in December.

But in July 1981, he was killed in an automobile accident near his Long Island home. He had a reputation as a terrible driver, and he was on his way to do a concert for charity.

His epitaph on his tombstone was from a song of his:

"Oh if a man tried to take his time on Earth and prove before he died what one man's life could be worth, I wonder what would happen to this world ..."

From the time my friend Bill introduced me to Harry Chapin's music to the time he died was only about eight years. I went from age 23 to 31, and I have been listening to his music ever since.

I don't know why it is that so many good people, so many people trying to change this world for the better, die so young, and people who live only for themselves and actually hurt others seem to live forever. I am reminded of a quote from the 1944 movie "Since You Went Away." An old retired soldier learns that his grandson has been killed in action.

His response is heartbreaking.

"The good die first. And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust burn to the socket."