November 19, 1994, is a historic day for Mary Chapin Carpenter. It was on this day that Carpenter was at the top of the charts with “Shut Up And Kiss Me“. The song, written solely by Carpenter, and featuring backing vocals by Trisha Yearwood, is on Carpenter’s fifth studio album, Stones In The Road.
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Not only did Carpenter have a No. 1 hit with “Shut Up And Kiss Me”, but it also won her a Grammy Award, for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. The song was also nominated for Best Country Song.
“Shut Up And Kiss Me” says in part, “Oh, baby, just to feel this feeling / That everything that you do gives me / It’s been too long since somebody whispered / Shut up and kiss me.”
“Shut Up And Kiss Me” is one of Carpenter’s many, many hits. She also had successful singles with “Quittin’ Time”, “Down At The Twist And Shout”, “I Feel Lucky”, “I Take My Chances”, and more. Ironically, although Carpenter had numerous Top 10 hits, “Shut Up And Kiss Me” is her only song to hit No. 1.
Why Mary Chapin Carpenter Wrote “Shut Up And Kiss Me” by Herself
Carpenter didn’t just write “Shut Up And Kiss Me” by herself, but she wrote all 13 songs on Stones In The Road solo. For Carpenter, its’s her favorite way to write.
“I’ve been writing songs by myself for 25 years,” Carpenter tells American Songwriter. “I don’t even think about it. It’s just that’s what I’ve been doing for so long. I never really knew what co-writing was until I got a record deal. It was just me sitting down with my guitar, and a legal pad, and a pencil and an eraser. That was just the way I did it.”
Carpenter just released Personal History, her latest album, writing all of those songs by herself. While even talented songwriters would love to learn how Carpenter pens such beautiful songs solo, the 67-year-old insists she doesn’t have any secret formula.
“I don’t really have it all mapped out,” Carpenter reveals. “It’s just a lot of trial and error. A lot of it is writing a whole lot of sh–, throwing it out and starting over. It’s about keeping a lot of stuff around, returning to it, and having fresh eyes and ears on it. You have like a piece of stone, and you’re just kind of chipping away at it until it takes on a form that seems to make sense.”
Personal History is Carpenter’s 17th solo studio album.
Photo by: Margaret Norton/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images
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