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- [Tom] My brother Harry wanted to be more
than just a great singer song writer.
He wanted to change the world and he did.
♪ It was raining hard in Frisco ♪
♪ I needed one more fare to make my night ♪
- [Ken] Harry Chapin was one of the greatest storytellers
of all time.
♪ She got in at the light ♪
♪ Where you going to my lady blue ♪
- [Judy] Harry was that rare combination
of somebody with a conscience and an ability
to write a good song.
♪ She said 16 Parkside Lane ♪
- [Pete] Not many song writers know how
to tell a story the way he did.
Not many singers know how
to get a story across the way he did.
♪ And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon ♪
♪ Little boy blue and the man in the moon ♪
♪ When you're coming home dad ♪
♪ I don't know when ♪
- [Billy] When that song first came out,
a lot of people thought it was a Harry Chapin song.
It used to bother me, but doesn't bother me anymore.
Now I take it as a compliment.
Because the truth is,
Harry Chapin wrote the best story songs.
♪ My son turned ten just the other day ♪
♪ He said, thanks for the ball, dad, come on let's play ♪
- [Harry] I do about 220 concerts a year,
about a hundred which are benefits,
about 60 of whom were for World Hunger Year.
I also do a bunch for the Performing Arts Foundation.
I also do about a half a dozen a year for Ralph Nader.
I've done a couple so far this year
for Citizens Action Fund.
I also do things for multiple sclerosis,
muscular dystrophy, cancer care, cystic fibrosis,
and a couple of other things.
If you get involved in things,
you ended up by getting involved in more things.
- [Darryl] Harry made it gangster to do something
about things that need something done for it.
- [Bill] And that was Harry's spirit indomitable spirit.
He never gave up.
- Steve Chapin.
- [John] It was like he knew that there was X amount
of time left, because he really did burn that candle,
bright and fast.
- [Harry] What's that great line of Bob Dylan's?
He is not busy being born, he's busy dying.
Luckily I'm one of these people.
My credo was when in doubt, do something.
You're a little early, guys.
Okay, big climax later on, here's the story.
♪ There you stand in your dungarees ♪
♪ Looking all grown up and so very pleased ♪
My mother always told me it'd be like this.
[girls giggling]
- [Mark] To regard Harry as merely a singer composer,
which he was,
is like considering babe Ruth a pitcher, which he was.
Both were that, but far more than that.
Harry quite simply was the leading citizen artist
of his generation.
♪ And so you and I ♪
♪ We watch our years go by ♪
♪ We watch our sweet dreams fly ♪
♪ Far away, away, but maybe someday ♪
- Harry champion is an artist who has been with us before
with his guitar and with his voice.
- Please do it for us, all right?
- Love to.
- Harry Chapin.
- Once again, here is Harry Chapin.
[audience applauding]
♪ It's a song for myself ♪
♪ It's just a song for myself ♪
- My mom had four boys by the time she was 25
with my dad, the jazz drummer, Jim Chapin.
The oldest with James, Butch Chapin, and then Harry,
and I was next, and then brother Steve.
But my mother and dad divorced early.
I was three, I think, when they divorced
because dad was a jazz drummer and he was on the road
and he loved drums and he loved women. [laughs]
It didn't work.
♪ Keep your radio on, let's have a big party W-I-N-S ♪
♪ We can sing and have fun ♪
We lived near here, West 11th Street, in the winters.
♪ 1010 WINS New York ♪
- [TV Commentator] As a fly ball hit out to left field,
Woodling getting under it.
And the Yankees are champions!
And look at Berra, piggyback riding Kuzava.
And then my stepfather came in the family.
He bought a brownstone in Brooklyn for $16,000.
- My mother Jean Elsbeth Burke had six sons.
Harry was number two and I was number five.
My mother had four Chapins in two Harts.
And she was an incredible woman
who raised us all basically as a single mom,
because both of her husbands were kind of not great choices.
- We had the unfortunate, or fortunate if you want,
of having the storybook evil stepfather.
He was well meaning, but unfortunately he couldn't handle
four boys growing up and it was a horror show
of beatings and all kinds of stuff.
It just made us really tight.
- [Jeb] We grew up in the school yards and at Grace Church.
Grace Church was crucial to us.
It was really the foundation of getting into music,
of Harry, Tom, and Steve getting into music.
Big John Wallace, Bobby Lamm, who we see in Chicago,
was in the choir.
- You know, going back to the choir room and the piano,
it really opened up a channel
that I wouldn't have otherwise had.
- [Jeb] We kind of grew up on our own
out there in the world, but the church and sports
were the foundations while my mom was trying
to be a single mom and work and have six boys
that were all over the place.
- Well, once we moved to Brooklyn Heights,
it was a school yard.
The school and the school yard were right next door to us.
Our days were like literally eight hours of handball,
stickball, ring-a-levio, stoop ball
and anything with a ball, any place, anyhow,
it was just active, active, active.
- There's more family history probably out here
than anywhere else.
- Because it's an older place, that's why. [laughs]
Well, this is every summer, you know,
we were kids and it was like, yay, it's June.
And we'd get here and then it's barefoot, and it was tennis,
it was the Lake.
So this is my whole life, every summer.
- Andover was a kind of ever-shifting feast of people.
First of all, there was KB
who was the presiding patriarchal genius
who appeared to me the most brilliant man in America.
- Harry never thought about money growing up.
He didn't have to.
His family, while not monetarily rich,
they were rich in being part of the intellectual
give and take in the country of being part
of the American art history.
And so Harry really never had to think about money.
♪ At first you seemed just like my dream ♪
♪ Of a finer better life ♪
♪ Much more than I could ask for ♪
♪ In a lover or a wife ♪
- [Harry] I was a rich little poor boy.
You've heard of the poor little rich boys.
People with a lot of money
and very little inspiration, very little.
I came up with an incredible family.
No money, but I never went hungry.
But people who asked the right questions,
pushed and prodded you.
- You had a mixture of filmmakers.
You have little Ricky, who was making films.
You have, Jim was bringing out half of, you know,
the Harlem left is coming out.
It's just this constant swirl of different kinds
of people and experiences.
All of them creative, most of them on the left,
one kind to another.
- [Steve] Hey, if I were Jewish then call it a mitzvah.
For him to use his God given gifts to do good.
- [Sean] The thrust for us was to find something in the arts
that you spent your life doing.
It wasn't about making a living.
It wasn't about making a lot of money.
Wasn't even about fame that so much,
but it's something that you've put into the world
and put your life toward.
- [Josh] There's a kid out on my corner,
hear him strumming like a fool.
Shivering in his dungarees, but still he's going to school.
♪ There's a kid out on my corner ♪
♪ Hear him strumming like a fool ♪
♪ Shivering in his dungarees ♪
♪ But still he's going to school ♪
- Harry was the can do.
The family joke, which I coined at one time
and everybody loved, was two's company,
Harry's a crowd. [laughs]
♪ Tzena, Tzena, Tzena, Tzena ♪
♪ Can't you hear the music playing ♪
♪ In the city square ♪
♪ Tzena, Tzena, Tzena, Tzena ♪
♪ Come where all our friends will find us ♪
♪ With the dancers there ♪
- My mother's sister had the only Hi-Fi in the valley.
Remember Hi-Fis?
And she brought a recording called The Weavers
at Carnegie Hall and played it for us.
And that changed our world as it did the world of this place
and The Village,
because they were the inspiration for
for the Kingston Trio, for the Limeliters,
the Tom Paxton on down the line and,
and the Chapin Brothers as well.
We listen to that recording all summer long.
[banjo picking]
If you invited one Chapin brother,
the three of us would come with instruments.
Steve first played a 10-string ukulele
and then moved on to the bass.
And we became the Chapin Brothers.
♪ Sing along in chorus ♪
- [Announcer] Tonight, let's sing out
with the students of the University of
Featuring Joanie Anderson.
The Chapins.
And now, Oscar Brown.
That loud blast of assembles and the bass you heard
came from a drum, which is new to our program.
But is being handled by the capable Mr. Chapin.
Mr. Steve Chapin.
- [Steve] Jim Chapin. - Jim Chapin?
- [Steve] I'm Steve.
- You're Steve. Well, who are you?
- [Tom] Tom. - That's Tom.
Over there?
- [Harry] Harry! - Harry.
And all together they're the Chapin Family.
- Their father is considered one of the great drummers
in America, and we're proud to produce the whole family.
So here are the Chapins.
♪ I'm gonna walk all over this wide, wide world ♪
♪ See what there's to see ♪
- Harry was the least proficient musically,
so it was kind of like everybody
had their power in different ways.
♪ Well every man's just skin and bones ♪
♪ And a pair of itching feet ♪
- Tom had a really high voice
and could hit notes that were unattainable
and is an excellent guitar player.
Both of us, Tom and I, could both
really well sing in tune and blend really well.
- [Tom] Love the idea of making music
and and Harry started writing for us as well.
That's really sort of the genesis of the Chapin Brothers
and the connection with folk music.
- [Steve] Harry was kind of like in charge
and actually a lot of times they would, they would,
you know, other people behind
would say you guys got to do more.
Three of us were playing with our dad in the Village Gate.
After the first set, dad comes back to his boys and says,
it's a little slow out there tonight.
Steve and Tom, I want you guys to cheer up.
Harry, cheer down.
[audience applauding]
- We were living in Brooklyn Heights,
not exactly the center of the folk music universe.
But was 15 minutes by the A train to here.
Tuesday night was hootenanny night here at the Bitter End.
And if you came in the afternoon and you tried out for it,
you might be able to play that night.
And we started doing that.
- [Steve] Harry got this film offer to go to Ethiopia,
to do a documentary about hunger in Ethiopia.
And Harry was a grownup, you know,
he'd been working in the documentary film world.
In fact, one of his documentary films
was nominated for Academy Award, "The Legendary Champions."
♪ Way back when, when men were men ♪
♪ They always came out fighting ♪
- [Announcer] Tiny Tommy Burns is soon getting home
with his equalizer, his booming right hand.
Spires goes down.
- Harry came back six months later,
and the boys who needed the money to go to college
had put together a new band.
- Steve says, well, you better tell him.
So I sat there and said, Harry,
we're kicking you out of the band.
What?
- There was no way he could walk back in.
He wasn't a singer.
We already had two guitarists in the band.
You know what I mean?
At this time he didn't bring anything to the table.
- [Jeb] The Chapins had a really cool rock and roll band.
And when Harry came back, he was no longer part of it.
I understood that.
Cause it was, in terms of like musical judgment and judging,
it was the right decision.
- [Harry] I mean, I come from a family
of absolutely brilliant people.
I've got some brothers, as you know,
I think are more naturally talented than I am at music.
But the only thing different between them and I
is I'm a little bit more bullheaded and go out
and bang my head against the the castles.
And they they've taken a little bit more cooled out route.
- We rented the Village Gate for $400 a week.
And our opening act was, the first week was Harry,
by himself.
And he's singing these long story songs.
It was raining hard in Frisco, and it was dead.
He didn't know how to perform yet.
And the songs just lay there.
And he did four nights, four very hard nights
opening for us, and we were pretty good band.
So instead of being crushed by this, he says,
hmm, I need a band.
He calls up John Wallace, who'd been a choir boy with us,
to play bass, found a guitar player, Ron Palmer,
wonderful finger style guitar player.
Put an ad in the Village Voice for a cello player,
and got Tim Scott.
And they started rehearsing and inventing these songs.
- He said, listen, I don't have any money.
He said that the most important thing to me is loyalty.
He said if stay with me, we're all going to be partners.
It was a handshake deal.
And it was kept not only by Harry, but by the family.
He knew what he wanted.
- It would be nice, the ninth.
There's ninth and the major seven.
♪ Ba-Da-Da-Da-Da-Da Da-Da-Da-Da-Da Da ♪
I wonder if you should hit the 4th up there.
♪ Ba-Da-Da-Da ♪
- Harry's songs started getting a little more adventuresome
and a little more story-oriented,
a little more personally oriented.
- He was ambitious.
He really wanted to matter.
- What I saw was not what I expected.
I lost it in the first number.
I mean, I could tell what was going on.
This was a very well integrated band, vocally.
The instruments were wonderful,
but I thought featuring the sincerity of the cello was magic
because I had tried to talk artists to doing that
in the past myself and had not succeeded.
They were comfortable with the instruments they had.
And I was looking for something that would give
even folk music an underpinning.
- There's something about a cello anyway,
that plays in minor keys.
And it was magical with his music
because it was so appropriate,
because so much was visually dramatic and emotional and sad.
You know, so there's nothing sadder
than somebody sitting next to you playing
just beautiful string lines on the cello.
- There was a couple of quirky things that Harry did
that made him stand apart from other people.
Also the guy who was singing falsetto.
The guy's in the back row with a real high voice.
Like an opera singer, almost.
That was different too.
- [Robert] I was really kind of shocked to see John Wallace
be part of the whole thing.
John always had a great voice, great falsetto,
and he always fooled around with his range,
singing low notes, singing high notes.
- [Billy] And then Harry was, you know, telling his story.
It made him stand out.
- Listen to the story about Mr. Tanner.
- I always thought of him as a troubadour.
♪ Mister Tanner was a cleaner from a town in the Midwest ♪
♪ And of all the cleaning shops around ♪
♪ He'd made his the best ♪
This is a person who, you know, I don't know,
I mean, listen, he sang great, it was a charm that he had,
but I think his real gift was the storytelling.
♪ His friends and neighbors praised the voice ♪
♪ That poured out from his throat ♪
♪ They said that he should use his gift ♪
♪ Instead of cleaning coats ♪
- And so that, right in front of him,
was this possibility of being a singer song writer.
And two weeks later, he comes back and it's a revelation.
- [Jac] He wrapped his songs around the people who listened.
♪ And the good old days, they say they're gone ♪
- It was pretty thrilling.
He's right in the middle of that triangle
and hearing this stuff, you know.
You knew there was something to it.
- Sort of part and parcel of watching him do this
and helping as much as we can.
And being a little bit astonished, but not shocked.
♪ Could you put your light on please ♪
By the end of the summer, they got a great review
in the New York times.
And people were coming to see Harry
at the end of the summer.
- When he was first acknowledged at The Village Gate
and the record company people started coming down
and he'd called the different companies
and talked to one of the secretaries
and say he was somebody else
and then do a pitch for Harry Chapin. [chuckles]
Always out in front, you know, always moving forward.
Yeah, his motto was onwards and upwards.
- And that was the fall that Clive Davis and Jac Holzman
at Elektra Records and Clive Davis at Columbia
had a bidding war to get Harry.
- [Harry] The bidding war thing started, which I mean,
it's not a time I would like to relive,
but it made us a lot of money.
- Clive and I had gone toe to toe on other artists.
Delaney and Bonnie, he had tried to take Judy Collins away.
We were used to scrapping with each other.
- As his brother, it was really exciting to watch
this whole thing happen.
- That's when the trigger went off,
this is the band I can work with.
♪ And maybe now some lead guitar ♪
♪ So it would not sound so thin ♪
♪ I need some drums to set ♪
We made an offer.
Atlantic made an offer.
Clive made an offer.
The numbers were going back and forth.
♪ I need all the help I can get ♪
♪ And we would play together ♪
♪ Like fine musicians should ♪
♪ And it would sound like music ♪
♪ And the music would sound good ♪
♪ But in real life I'm stuck with ♪
The band had come to my house up in the country
because I liked to prerecord my records.
I couldn't find Harry.
Nobody could get ahold of them.
Finally, I got a call back from Harry.
I said, well, I'm on my way to California,
then I said, we'll meet you at the airport.
So he met us and he said, we're gonna go with Columbia.
I was pissed off because I thought we
had shaken hands on the deal.
Stayed the week in California,
I found out that the Colombia numbers were,
shall we say, less than accurate,
because I got the real numbers.
But I never used them.
Banged on the door at six o'clock in the morning,
they knew I was coming and said, I'm not leaving here.
Get a couch or something,
I'm not leaving here until we have a deal.
- Harry had his, sort of had the act together
in its own way.
They had this, it started off with this trick
with the lights and Taxi was more than just a song.
- In 72 I remember hearing the taxi on the radio
and then thinking, this is something different.
This is a folk song.
Who is this guy?
- Taxi's about 60% true.
And so I use realities I know about to set me going.
And then I try to make the song true to itself.
♪ There was not much more for us to talk about ♪
♪ Whatever we had once was gone ♪
♪ So I turned my cab into the driveway ♪
♪ Past the gate and the fine trimmed lawns ♪
The songs have to mean something to somebody
if they're going to buy them or keep playing.
- [Bill] And Yours do.
See, I think that that can be the trap
that years mean an awful lot to a lot of people.
- The writing there was so smart and simple at the same time
that I thought this was special.
♪ Harry, keep the change ♪
- Great song.
She said, let's get together,
but I knew it'd never be arranged,
And she handed me twenty dollars for a two fifty fare,
she said Harry, keep the change.
And that's such a cool line
that the hair stands up on my arm.
Well, another man might've been angry,
another man might have been hurt,
but another man would never would have let her go,
I stuffed the bill on my shirt.
I mean, that's, you know, real life.
That's really what happened.
Whether it did or not, in my mind, that happened.
I could picture the whole thing.
And the guy at the end getting stoned,
and I fly so high when I'm stoned.
You didn't hear that on the radio, that was pretty risque.
- We didn't start on AM radio.
We started on FM radio, which I knew was going
to be more friendly to him.
And Harry went to all the key stations
and he told wonderful stories.
And his personality, even if you weren't seeing him live,
you could hear it through the interview.
He was always there, no matter what he did,
whether he was doing it for a charity
or in the studio for himself, he was 100% all the time.
- [Billy] We were playing in the Kiel Opera House
in St. Louis.
And I was opening up for Harry Chapin.
♪ It's nine o'clock on Saturday ♪
♪ The regular crowd shuffles in ♪
We got a great reception from his audience.
I didn't know how we're gonna go over with his crowd.
But they were very receptive, very warm audience.
And he even talked about me to the audience
in his own show.
He was the headliner, but he said something,
how about that, Billy Joel?
And I thought that was really nice.
He didn't have to do that.
But he plugged me to his own audience.
And I never forgot that.
I thought that was a very gentlemanly thing to do.
Especially in the music business where it's all dog-eat-dog
and claws are out in the music business.
♪ Ah, he was the sun burning bright and brittle ♪
♪ And she was the moon shining back his light a little ♪
♪ He was a shooting star ♪
- I went out to Long Island to play a club,
just not even a club, like a pub, it was like bar
and Harry was in the bar.
He wasn't drinking, he was drinking a club soda.
My favorite recollection of him, this stays with me always,
that he looked like he just literally rolled out of bed.
His hair was all over the place.
He had like some wrinkled t-shirts and jeans
that were hanging so loose.
And he was just sitting there, talking to a guy.
And when I started this, when I was singing,
he came over and he said, "Hey," he goes like,
"What's your name, and what are you doing?"
And all this stuff.
And I told him, and that's when he told me, he goes,
"Well, you know, I'm doing this thing down the street."
He goes, "You should come and audition for this
"because I think that you would be great for this.
"It'd be fun for you."
And, I was, "Okay." [laughs]
You know what I mean?
Like, this is Harry Chapin, no problem, I'm coming.
♪ Shining back his light a little ♪
♪ He was a shooting star ♪
He was very selfless.
You know, this was genuine, this was authentic.
And so everything that anybody ever reads about him
or hears about him, the stories are true.
It's true.
You know, he was just, he was a dude.
I mean, the best part, the rest of that story
is that he didn't have any money.
He was going in every pocket.
I was like, watching him do this.
And I said to him, do you need money?
Which was just like absolutely ridiculous.
You know what I mean? [laughing]
I said, "Do you need any money?"
And he goes, "I don't have any money."
So I gave him $5 to pay for the, whatever, club soda,
water, I don't know what he's drinking,
it was clear and it wasn't alcohol, I know that.
But whether it was a 7Up, whatever, you know,
but I gave him five bucks.
He had no money on him.
And he was just, you know, kinda like Colombo. [laughs]
Kind of like the musical version of Colombo.
- First album, we were at Fillmore East
and Harry showed up in the wings and he was very sweet.
You know, it was great surprise to see him.
He was very enthusiastic.
The thing about Harry was
that he's probably the most charming kid you'd ever know.
- I was just like little, you know,
a girl just singing in a bar.
But he treated me with such respect and dignity.
And I didn't forget that ever.
- With '70s rock radio, especially the storytellers,
Jim Croce, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell.
But it was this one song called "Cat's in the Cradle,"
that I don't relate to, 'cause I'm a kid.
So it was a nursery rhyme,
but it was just the sound of the record.
You know what I'm saying?
That was so captivating.
- The most original and talented young songwriter
and performer, was nominated for a Grammy Award
as the Best New Artist of 1972.
Would you please welcome, Harry Chapin.
[audience clapping]
♪ I'm talking about love ♪
♪ Well she asked me, what is it good for ♪
♪ She asked me, what could it do ♪
♪ She asked me what does it feel like ♪
♪ And I told her all that I knew ♪
♪ I'm talkin' 'bout love ♪
♪ Love can't solve any problem ♪
♪ I'd be wrong if I said that it could ♪
♪ I was talkin' 'bout love ♪
♪ Love can't save anybody ♪
♪ It just makes your body feel good ♪
- [Harry] Two, three, four.
♪ She was down at the land just delighted ♪
♪ She was so something jumping for joy ♪
♪ She was laughing crazy excited ♪
♪ Like a baby with a brand new toy ♪
♪ I'm talkin' 'bout love ♪
- [Josh] It's you girl,
you've put Rose colored glasses on my eyes
and made the world a game.
And everything I thought I knew, will never be the same.
- This is a song about how I met my wife.
I was giving guitar lessons back in the days
where I used that as a social means
to get girls into my room.
And this one turned out a little more serious
than I thought it would.
- [Sandy] Out of the blue, actually, he called up
and he said, "I hear you wanna take guitar lessons."
♪ I come fresh from the street ♪
♪ Fast on my feet, kinda lean and lazy ♪
- [Harry] My wife had three kids when I've met her
and we've had two sons by the normal methods.
- They would share poems when they first met.
It was supposedly for guitar lessons,
but I think it moved to other things over the years.
♪ And for each full-hour lesson I gave ♪
♪ I got a crisp ten dollar bill ♪
- Sometimes he called and said he was busy.
Sometimes he just didn't show up and sometimes he did.
♪ She said she wanted to learn to play the guitar ♪
♪ And to hear her children sing ♪
We had a hot date.
We went to Flame Steaks, for $1.99. [laughs]
- And he became on the scene more and more over time.
It was a slow process of liking Harry.
It took me a while to warm up to him.
And I can remember the first time when I finally was,
ah, you know, this person is in my life.
He had this energy of a very, very young person.
So for us, it was like just having another fun person
around the house.
♪ I want to learn a love song ♪
♪ I want to hear you play ♪
♪ She said, I want to learn a love song before you go away ♪
- She made her wedding gown and it had one of those,
I guess it was a Mandarin collar.
She, in seed pearls, sewed I love Harry
across the collar of her wedding dress.
♪ Sandy is the seashore and Sandy is the sea ♪
- They were a wonderful couple
in that they were kind of yin and yang to each other.
That he had the energy and he needed the attention,
and he loved to be out in front.
And mom was the idea person.
She was really the thinker and the one
that would come up with the ideas
and throw some stuff out there.
And then Harry would take that, grab it, and move with it.
- Sandy, well, her influence on the music
and on world hunger, she was 100% supportive.
Probably more than supportive, she was encouraging.
What a pair.
- In terms of my wife, she's getting a PhD in education
at Columbia, got her master's at Harvard
and has the ability, I seem to go from tree to tree
and she sees the forest.
A recording of his own song, "Cat's in the Cradle,"
sold over 1 million copies as a single.
- This is, as I said, a song that Harry
and his wife Sandy collaborated on.
- "Cat's in the Cradle," was a poem that my mom wrote,
showed it to Harry as kind of,
this is a lesson to be learned,
and then he turned it into song.
And they did that a lot.
They shared things back and forth.
- The first time we heard "Cat's in the Cradle,"
I remember that time. - Yeah.
- Yeah, we were in the dressing room,
he pulls up this wooden chair, sticks his foot on it.
You know, "I got this song guys,
"I think it's gonna be a hit."
He started playing it, and it was like, Whoa.
Everybody kind of said, yeah, that's, that's nice.
That's, you know, something could happen with this.
It was sort of number one there for a while.
- I have some people around me that not only
will give me criticism, but come up with very strong ideas.
And the most one is, the most important one in my life
is my wife who really came up with the basic concept
and many of the key lines of this song.
As Stravinsky once said, great artists steal,
bad artists borrow.
I'm desperately trying to be great artist
so I stole this from my wife.
It's called "Cats in the Cradle,"
and it's about my boy, Josh.
- Yeah, He had a whole shtick in concert where he would,
he would say it was about me and lie about its origins.
- And frankly, the song scares me to death.
- [Sandy] We don't know life's lessons until too late.
♪ My child arrived just the other day. ♪
- [Josh] It became about, about all of us,
I guess, in a way.
- This is the tree house that Harry built,
and the address of our tree house was 5J Locust Lane,
hence the five Js.
♪ And he was talking before I knew it, and as he grew ♪
♪ He'd say I'm gonna be like you dad ♪
♪ You know I'm gonna be like you ♪
♪ And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon ♪
♪ Little boy blue and the man in the moon ♪
♪ When you coming home, dad ♪
♪ I don't know when ♪
♪ But we'll get together then ♪
- [Josh] He tried very hard to be at home
as much as he could,
but he also was on the road a tremendous amount.
- Lusted to take advantage of whatever opportunities
were out there and to make the most
of every opportunity he got.
♪ Well my son turned ten just the other day ♪
♪ Said, thanks for the ball, dad, come on let's play ♪
- My dad was a fantastic dad.
He was an action dad.
♪ And he walked away, but his smile never dimmed ♪
♪ And said, I'm gonna be like him, yeah ♪
♪ You know I'm gonna be like him ♪
- So many instances of the way that he touched people,
we hear in all sorts of stories that come back.
♪ When you coming home, dad ♪
♪ I don't know when ♪
♪ But we'll get together then, son ♪
- And he would come home and say, okay,
we're going to do this and you're gonna enjoy it
and you're gonna thank me for it.
He was like the ringleader.
♪ Well, he came from college just the other day ♪
- [Harry] I become a category.
I mean, when they say a Chapin song,
people know what you're talking about.
- You really weren't cat's in the cradle-ing me back there?
- Of course not.
♪ And he said with a smile ♪
♪ What I'd really like, dad, is to borrow the car keys ♪
♪ See you later, can I have them please ♪
♪ Well the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon ♪
♪ Little boy blue and the man in the moon ♪
♪ When you coming home, dad ♪
♪ I don't know when ♪
♪ But we'll get together then ♪
♪ You know we'll have a good time then ♪
- I should have golfed with you sooner, dad.
- I've never made the time.
- Luke!
- I need to call my son.
- Where do you go home to?
Where do you go and rest retreat?
- Well, I go home to my home, my wife and five kids.
I also go home to motel rooms, my writing pad.
I also go home to airplanes and I also go home
to rent-a-cars, and I also go home to Washington,
World Hunger Year.
♪ But it's sure nice talking to you, dad ♪
♪ It's been sure nice talking to you ♪
- She's 22, she's gonna go off, do whatever she does.
And then you see her at holidays for a few hours here.
Maybe you steal a Saturday once in a while.
Reminded me of the Harry Chapin song, "Cat's in the Cradle,"
which was a great old song from a great, great man.
Great New Yorker too.
- Hey, what's "Cat's in the Cradle?"
That a song from the '70s, you've heard it.
♪ And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon ♪
[audience laughing]
♪ Little boy blue and the man in the moon ♪
- Why don't you just play your "Cat's in the Cradle," video?
- Oh, hey, son of a bitch, I love that song.
That's got that nice message in it.
- [Man] How are we doing?
- Cat's in the Cradle.
- Whoa, whoa, where are you going?
- I'm gonna go play catch with my son
before it gets too late like "Cat's in the Cradle."
- That's all very "Cat's in the Cradle,"
I don't wanna get into it.
♪ Cause it's really kind and simple ♪
♪ When they came to me ♪
♪ There's a lot of people just like me ♪
♪ Like me ♪
♪ There's a whole lot just like me ♪
♪ Like me ♪
- Here's this song that captivated me as a little kid.
It stayed a current theme in my life
hearing the early hip hop guys
that were even impressed by it.
♪ You wanna party til the break of day ♪
♪ And he was talking before I knew it, and as he grew ♪
♪ He'd say I'm gonna be like you, dad ♪
♪ You know I'm gonna be like you ♪
♪ And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon ♪
♪ Little boy blue and the man in the moon ♪
♪ When you coming home, son ♪
♪ I don't know when ♪
♪ But we'll get together then, dad ♪
♪ We'll all have a good time then ♪
- Now here's what comes
that I call the exodus part of the song. [sings boldly]
You get these visions of Sal Mineo
coming through the bull rings.
[group laughing]
♪ The cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon ♪
♪ Little boy blue and the man in the moon ♪
♪ When you coming home, son ♪
♪ I don't know when ♪
♪ But we'll get together then, dad ♪
- Donkey!
♪ You know we'll have a good time then ♪
- [John] We knew, he was kind of on a mission.
♪ I am the morning DJ at W-O-L-D-D-D-D-D-D ♪
- Before I met Harry I met Tom
and I did a radio show with him,
I was doing a show called On this Rock
for the ABC Radio Network.
- I think the initial thing actually
was Bill Ayres meeting Harry.
- I was a Catholic priest at the time,
which was a little strange to be doing rock roll show,
but I thought it was a good idea. [laughs]
♪ The bright good morning voice ♪
At the end of the show, Tom said to me,
that was really good.
He said, you ask good questions.
You outta talk to my brother, he loves to talk.
Good morning and welcome On this Rock.
And we do have somebody who makes it happen.
Not only musically, but in a whole lot of other ways.
It's a great pleasure for me to do a show
with a guy that I have tremendous respect for,
but also a real love for.
A great friend, Harry Chapin.
- [Harry] Well Bill, we talked so many times
in a non-recorded situation.
It's gonna be interesting to be here,
captured on tape today.
♪ When they let me go ♪
♪ So I drifted on down to Tulsa, Oklahoma ♪
♪ To do me a late-night talk show ♪
- He came on the show and he was great.
And at the end of it, he said to me, that was really good.
He said, you should come to my house for dinner.
♪ I am the morning DJ at W-O-L-D-D-D-D-D-D ♪
- I remember he said to me, even if I have to end up
doing hand carvings in the tip of a toothpick,
it has to be something nobody else has ever done.
♪ W-O-L-D ♪
♪ I am the morning DJ on Danish radio ♪
- If Harry was an inspiration to me,
Bill was an inspiration to Harry.
♪ Playing all the hits for you ♪
♪ But you got a long, long way to go ♪
- The amazing thing about Why Hunger
and about Bill and Harry is that sense of we.
- So right away, they had that spirit, you know,
that wanting to change things and make things better.
That was a big part of his life.
- [Harry] The dreams, let's talk about our dreams.
♪ I can hear my country crying ♪
♪ For the dreams of yesterday ♪
♪ It's the sound of something dying ♪
♪ Saying we lost our way ♪
- We had a gathering of friends at our house.
They were talking about what they've been doing in the '60s.
And some had marched on Washington.
♪ As we're lookin' for the light ♪
♪ I can hear my country crying ♪
♪ From the dark that's in our eyes ♪
♪ It reflects in dirty water ♪
♪ And the wasted lives ♪
- When we met for dinner, we started talking
and I had an idea.
I had come from the civil rights movement.
I had marched with Dr. King.
I believed that hunger and poverty were wrong.
- One March on Washington doesn't change the world
and how can you change the world?
And then the subject came up that if you're going
to make a difference, you pick something
that's important enough to dedicate a lifetime.
♪ Do we take to the road ♪
♪ And make tomorrow today ♪
♪ Or take to our heels boys ♪
♪ And watch her fade away ♪
- [Harry] I would say that my prime goal in life
is to have an impact in that area.
Why?
Because it is the most basic area.
The fact is hunger also involves ecology.
It also involves energy.
It also involves women's rights and about economics
and about politics.
It involves the future of our own kind.
- So Harry was right, as he was right about so many things.
There's no need for hunger.
It's an abnormality in the human economic
and political condition.
It's a farce.
- [Dave] What they did was they knew something about people,
they knew who they wanted to help.
- They made a commitment over the years to spend the rest
of our lives fighting poverty.
- [Ken] His philosophy about stuff, his feelings
about the importance of solving these core issues,
were really amazing.
♪ A song beyond the walls ♪
♪ Through the open roads and the skyways ♪
♪ Is where our future goes ♪
- [Dave] The two of them had taken on the world.
- Harry and I both recognized, right from the beginning,
that if you want to solve hunger,
you can't just feed people.
That's the first step.
And at the time that movement was just beginning,
emergency food.
And so we got into that.
- You know, and it was right around the time
of the Bangladesh concert.
And I think they decided we could
do a Bangladesh type concert for hunger.
♪ See the love, love that's sleeping ♪
- [Sandy] Bill and Harry talking
about the concert in Bangladesh.
- So I said to Harry, why don't we do a
kind of Bangladesh type concert, but make it for Africa.
He said, "Great idea, I love it."
So we went to the UN.
He knew a guy at the UN,
and the guy said, "Yeah, it's a great idea."
- Bill, and I guess Harry, who I really didn't,
it might even have been the first time I met Harry.
And they explained to us that they
were gonna do this concert.
- And we had several, several meetings,
but it never worked out.
♪ It was an early morning bar room ♪
♪ And the place just opened up ♪
♪ And the little man come in so fast and ♪
♪ Started at his cup. ♪
- [Tom] They began to realize a couple of things.
First of all, this is a world that can feed itself.
And second of all, that a concert wasn't gonna do it.
Something had to be here today, next week,
a month from now, a year from now, 10 years from now.
And in the course of that,
they decided we really need an organization
that is just working on this.
And Bill and Harry said, we could do this.
♪ But the little man just sat there ♪
♪ Like he'd never heard a sound ♪
♪ The waitress she gave out with a cough ♪
- [Bill] We've had some fantastic bombs,
in terms of some concerts that we tried to plan
that didn't come off.
But we've done, how many, about 50 concerts?
- Yeah, Yeah, well, the thing, Bill, is as you have said,
and I, I mean, it's a thing that I believe in strongly
that if you're serious about something you're not looking
for the one march, the one concert.
That you're involved on a day to day basis,
you here today, tomorrow, next week, next month,
next year, 10 years from now.
- I didn't know Bill enough or Harry,
to know that that's what they did.
They did the impossible.
- He was in a hurry to do everything,
make everything he could happen, you know.
And literally believed that through his efforts
and the efforts, if he could get the politicians involved,
he could eliminate these issues of hunger
and homelessness and poverty.
- [Bill] Let's talk about our dreams here.
- [Harry] Well, it's an interesting time.
I hope they don't forget the fact
that what America truly stands for is not B1 Bombers.
What makes us unique is human rights,
human needs and human dignity.
- Not so bad.
- Wow, looks great!
It's interesting to look back to the 1970s
into the friendship that Bill and Harry had
and the vision that they shared,
and how active they were in Washington, DC.
♪ It was the town that made America famous ♪
- He's really looking for commonality.
He was trying to figure out what the biggest issues were,
who wanted to be involved in the biggest issues,
and how they could work together for a solution.
- I loved when Bill and Harry would come in.
One would be the crashing surf,
the other would be the gentle stream.
But both delivered the message.
- And I think when he and Bill met,
they were both very positive people
who believed in the power of possibility.
And neither of them, not just wouldn't take no
for an answer, they didn't think that no really existed
in the hearts of other people,
because the two of them were such yes people.
And in that sense sometimes I think Sandy
and I both married a preacher.
- His political sensibility
was also kind of prophetic and timeless.
♪ Now they were the folks that made America famous ♪
- So we started knocking on doors.
And Harry was very persuasive.
He walked in like this and say,
I got this presidential commission, why
- He had entree on a lot of different levels
and he would use them.
And it's not as if he would say hello and greet them.
He would say, hello, and say, what are you doing?
- Well we thought 52, I guess we had 52, 53.
- And we have a number of people who have not signed it,
who have said that if it comes to a vote,
they'll vote for it.
And they also will not do anything to stop it
from going up on the unanimous consent.
- Well we got, I think just I this morning from Chicago,
called a bunch of senators.
- But Baker said that he wouldn't.
- We're gonna share some songs here for a little while.
- Do you know who he is?
This is my brother, Harry Chapin.
[Harry laughing]
♪ I was crammed into a coffee house pew ♪
- I think if there was some way
that we could harness Harry's energy,
we could solve all the problems in the world:
energy problem, world food problems and everything else.
Harry and I have become quite friendly,
worked very closely together on the whole question
of world food.
He's been in my office nearly daily
and then he's off to somewhere like California
for the afternoon or evening,
and is back again later in the same day.
- I bought what Henry Kissinger said in 1974
at the World Food Conference, and he said,
I think it indicate the focus that Harry
and others want to place on the resolution.
Now, passing a resolution itself does nothing.
- About the commission, because it's asked
to answer difficult questions
about the United States policies affecting hunger.
We're asking, what are we doing?
Can we do it better?
And can we do more?
♪ Say they know what's going on ♪
♪ But I sometimes think the difference is ♪
♪ Just in how I think and see ♪
♪ And the only changes going on ♪
♪ Are going on in me ♪
- [Bill] We actually were able to get a majority
of congressmen to sign on to this and vote to say yes.
And then named Harry as one of the members
of the commission.
- [Ken] What is unique about this person?
What is it that when they walk in the room,
they dominate the room?
Everything changes, there's a whole different energy
in the room and dynamic and karma
or whatever you wanna call it.
And Harry was one of those people.
And I saw that the first moment I met with him.
[audience applauding]
- You guys don't do bad after you're pushed a little.
Same way by Congress, I tell you, same thing.
- What a lovely man and how right was he?
But he lobbied to nicely in Congress.
You know, those fuckers are up for election every two years,
take them out.
They're so vulnerable.
- He called me one day and he said,
"We're going to the White House."
Carter had invited a whole bunch of record company people.
They got the idea that we had about doing a concert.
So Harry said, "You gotta get dressed up."
I said, "Me get dressed up?
"You got to get dressed up."
"Oh no, wait until you see it," he said,
"Sandy bought me a new suit."
Oh, okay.
- I walk in the white house, right?
I dropped a piece of paper.
I leaned down, I go, [imitates ripping sound]
My pants are ripped from here all the way through to here.
So for the rest of the day, I'm going like.
Can you imagine the secret service men watching me,
I'm going like this.
[audience laughing]
Incredible.
- Meeting was not going too well
and these record company guys are going, buh, buh, buh.
Harry stands up and he says,
"I've been pedaling my rear end for hunger
"for all these years."
And he turns around and he shows them. [laughs]
- I met Harry in 1978.
I was in the studio.
He was making a record in another studio.
And he came smiling up to me and started talking to me.
And 20 minutes went by, 30 minutes went by.
We talked about everything, politics, music.
Yeah, he's a nice guy.
- This was true about Harry, he loved to talk.
- Not only would he leave the room in the middle
of one of your sentences, he'd leave the room
in the middle of one of his sentences.
His mind was always two minutes ahead of what was going on.
- He'd be walking along and you'd be running.
- [Ken] I couldn't keep up with Harry Chapin.
Harry Chapman was in a hurry about everything in his life.
- Whose pencil did I steal here?
- He had a kind of leadership
that I always called the Pied Piper.
- Mr. Chapin, you said something in your concert
about world hunger, about you helping with that.
And I don't think that's much of a problem
because I feel if we can just improve agriculture
in the underdeveloped countries,
that ought to be sufficient to help it.
- Well, it's interesting, you know,
one of the things we're trying to make people aware of
both for World Hunger Year, which we founded five years ago
on the president's commission on world hunger,
which I'm a member of, is the fact
that there's so many myths about hunger.
And one of them is that we got too many people
and not enough food.
And if we just grow enough food
and stop the population expansion that we
But this is belied very clearly by a country that you may
have heard of called the United States of America.
- I live in the Bronx.
The Bronx, out of 62 counties in New York state,
the Bronx ranks 62 as the most unhealthiest.
Yeah, so this is the garden of happiness
and this is the 30th year.
So I tell people that if you were sad,
not feeling well, when you come in here, you'll see,
you'll feel happy.
So that's why we call it the garden of happiness.
It's a valley of love for me.
I enjoy the people here.
I enjoy waking up in the morning to hear the birds sing.
I enjoy nature.
And most of all, I enjoy the people and the children.
- [Harry] I mean, the fact is we've had hunger
all the way through human history and there's some things
that we're gonna have to do about it.
- [Bill] Some basic changes.
- [Harry] Right?
- [Bill] And some of those are political and economic.
- [Harry] And people have to be aware of what they can do
or how these things could caused.
Many of the economic dislocations in this country
right now, they're causing hardship for some people
have a basis in the same thing
that are making people starve in other countries.
- And so this is quote unquote, a low income neighborhood.
But for me, it's not about being about low income,
marginalized or poor.
It's about changing the lens of those
that have been the victim of politics, of racism,
in terms of hunger and poverty.
♪ He's the last of the protest singers ♪
♪ Selling truth and commitment ♪
♪ He don't get much work these days ♪
♪ He's billed as a novelty act ♪
- [Harry] You can fool people for a amount of time,
but in the long run, if you wanted to know where America was
in the '60s, you have to listen to Dylan, to the Beatles,
to Paul Simon, to Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.
You do not need, look at the top 20 albums,
you do not need listen to those albums
to know where America--
- [Bill] With a couple of exceptions.
- [Harry] Okay, well I think one of them,
you were about to mention.
- [Bill] Yeah, absolutely, Bruce Springsteen,
I think is a very good example of that.
- I wouldn't say Bruce necessarily missed meals,
but I think it was part of a thin margin.
- Next night I came in, Harry comes bounding up smiling,
and he starts talking to me.
30 minutes goes by, so finally,
I used to try to hide from him.
I'd come in and I'd ask the secretary
if Harry was in the lobby.
Then I'd sneak in the studio.
- I guess I've been known for the last three
or four years of the most politically
and socially active performer in America.
I found a lot of music critics are wishing I'd spend
more time in politics and a lot of politicians
that wished that I was spending more time in music.
But anyway, or at least suggesting that I do.
- He chose what he chose, and the day that he chose it,
he threw down everything he had.
- That's also part of the Harry and Bill thing,
which is they're interested in the work.
And we said, how do we get this done?
How do we help?
And how do we make this move forward
and move this increment, you know, really,
really help this situation.
- Is the idea of a participatory democracy outmoded?
Is the American dream outmoded?
- As far as his sense of citizenship,
his sense of patriotism, you look at words he said,
words he wrote 30-odd years ago
and they ring out beautifully today.
- I think the thing that makes all of us want to be alive,
it's to matter.
And the way you matter is to care enough about something
so you keep doing it.
- Harry and Bill were ahead of their time
because really what happened
when they started the organization,
there was like a hundred soup kitchens and pantries
in New York city, now there's 1300.
There's no less hunger.
So they always had a root cause approach
to look at the systems and structures that
What is at that intersection?
which we, at Why Hunger, define as social justice.
You have to solve hunger by looking at poverty,
by looking at a social justice.
And when you do that, there are plenty of people out there,
and this is what makes me hopeful,
that we can live the vision that Bill and Harry charted
so many years ago.
- Harry's pumping the crowds, "Are you ready?"
You know, "Are you ready?"
- Are you ready?
- Since it's halftime and Harry's in the toilet,
you know, in the dumper and here's them come in.
And hears them talking about him.
And it's Wallace, and says,
"If I hear one more freaking time."
- "Are you ready?"
Are you ready?
- "Are you ready?"
- For every song.
- Are you ready?
- Back in the cheap seats, they're ready. [snorting]
- Barking at halftime or whatever,
I'm mumbling and cursing under my breath.
You know?
And I thought I heard a little rustle in the stall
or something, but you know, took a leak or whatever,
I'm still cursing and mumbling, that son of a bitch
and are you ready and other bullshit.
- I say the funniest thing about Harry,
so Harry, what'd you do?
He says, "I pulled my legs up."
Which is the funniest thing I've ever heard.
Anybody else would've said, "I can hear you, Big John."
You know, it'd be like that.
But instead, I pulled my legs up.
I said, that's what a man.
- He never said a word until--
- Never said a word.
The second half he's doing the same shit.
Are you ready?
At one point, he turns around with this big smile
on his face, "Are you ready Big John?." [laughs]
- So we went out to California to mix.
I'm standing on this balcony, third floor of this motel.
And I hear, "Hey, hey."
I looked down and there's Harry.
[audience laughing]
And he starts talking to me.
[audience laughing]
- Talks to me for that 40 minutes,
standing down there looking up.
He was trying to get me to do something.
- Ralph Nader had called Jann Wenner and said, you know,
this guy, Harry Chapin is like the most effective person
I've ever seen on Capitol Hill.
- They should say to me what music can be
is that synthesis of magic and meaning that, well,
no other art form, I think, does so well.
♪ Remember when the music ♪
♪ Came from wooden boxes strung with silver wire ♪
- [Bill] I love that song, and it was a very appropriate
entry here at this point, because just at this very moment
in walks brother Tom, who plays lead guitar on that.
How you doing Tom?
- [Tom] Good, Bill, good to see you.
- [Bill] And not only good plays lead guitar,
but also has helped enormously in this venture
that Harry and I just been talking about,
the World Hunger stuff.
You have bailed us out any number of times.
- [Harry] My band calls Tom the benefit band,
because every time I need somebody to do
Tom is out there with me.
- [Bill] Yeah, that's great.
- It's part of what he wanted to do.
He was trying to raise as much as he could.
- From daddy's speech on volunteerism,
we must all go that extra mile.
We must be aggressive in the sense of challenging others
and making them realize that the American dream implies
that all of us must be actively involved.
We all have the potential to move the world
and the world is ready to be moved.
- And I really do think that people like Pete Seeger
inspired him and you know, obviously my mother,
and Bill and others.
And I think that anybody who is able to accomplish something
hopes that it doesn't end and that it continues,
but that relies on other people to also be inspired,
to be passionate, to be committed.
- [Bill] What we wanna talk about tonight
is this whole business of changing the world.
We got into that last week.
I take small topics like that, you know me, right?
The topic that we'd like to get into
is not only hunger, but your attitude towards society
and your role within it.
Whether you think you have any possibility
of changing anything,
maybe you've gotten a little bit cynical.
Do you think so?
Do you think that the two of us
are absolutely out of our minds?
I mean, some of our friends think we are.
- [Harry] Yeah, some of our friends are probably right.
♪ There you stand in your dungarees ♪
♪ Looking all grown up and so very pleased ♪
♪ When you write your poems they have so much to say ♪
- One of my favorite stories about Harry
is taking him to a Laker game in 1980 on election night.
- I was in a limo with Ken Kragen and Harry
outside the Forum in Inglewood, California,
and I was really excited,
being a New York Knicks fan all life
to sit courtside at the Lakers.
We get to the game, and it's a little surreal,
because we're down to the courtside
and Jack Nicholson's there,
and it's the Lakers in the Forum.
It's kind of fun, but there's this ominous feeling.
- Right now Jimmy Carter's preparing
to get into the presidential limousine.
He will be making his concession speech.
- And I'm sitting with Harry during the game.
We have been in the back room watching television
and what was happening in the election.
- I promised you four years ago
that I would never lie to you.
So I can't stand here tonight and say it doesn't hurt.
- [Ken] And suddenly he said to me, you know what?
I've lost most of the Democrats that were my supporters
on stuff I was trying to get done on the issues
of hunger and homelessness and poverty.
- The president pledged the utmost in cooperation
in the transition that will take place.
- I'm gonna have to leave right now,
I'm going to fly to Washington immediately.
And they ran on an anti-crime platform.
I'm going to show them how the reduction in those issues
can really affect what they want to accomplish.
- Reagan wasn't interested in any of this.
♪ He was crazy of course ♪
♪ From the first she must have known it ♪
Harry and I sat in his house just a few miles from here.
And we went in tears saying, you know,
a couple of years of our lives doing this stuff.
And then we said, okay, we're not gonna stop there.
We're gonna keep going.
♪ She believed in his believing ♪
♪ Ah, he was the sun burning bright and brittle ♪
♪ And she was the moon shining back his light a little ♪
♪ He was a shooting star ♪
♪ She was softer and more slowly ♪
- In your life, do you wanna be one cover
on Hit Parade Magazine,
or would you like to get the Nobel Peace Prize? [laughs]
- [Interviewer] What was his answer?
- The Nobel peace prize.
- So, I mean, the fact is that the news about Harry Chapin
right now is there's no news.
I've been doing this for nine years,
half my concerts are benefits.
I'm mostly socially and politically involved
performing in America, I'm going to continue be.
I'm not gonna get bullied.
- Ken Kragen had tried to manage Harry.
He was just, he was the manager of Harry,
if you could manage him.
- One of my problems with Harry,
trying to get Harry to focus on his own career.
Harry would go do the barbecue in your backyard
and raise a thousand dollars for some charity.
Kenny Rogers was very interested in those issues
and that kind of thing.
But he would go out
and raise a hundred thousand dollars in a show.
- He may have been the single most unselfish person
I've ever met in my life.
When he was really involved in this hunger project,
he would do 150 shows a year for hunger.
And he would donate, he would make three or $4,000 a night
and he could donate all this money
to the hunger projects that he had.
- What Kenny raised in one show was more
than what Harry raised in a year shows.
But he loved it.
He loved the interaction with the public.
He loved just talking to them.
He was such a people person,
and was making money signing merchandise.
He felt that was terrific.
♪ I've sung it all tonight. ♪
- I'll be out in the lobby, but I forgot to mention that,
signing anything you want me to sign.
- He would come to the Huntington Arts Festival,
which was in back of the YMCA.
He was there to attract people,
but he get there and take tickets, he'd collect money.
He'd be all around the place.
He'd be singing to people individually,
he'd be performing.
- I got up this morning at 5:00 in Hampton Beach,
New Hampshire to get a limousine driven
by a rather interesting old gentlemen down to Logan airport
in Boston and flew down here.
And I'm impressed, everybody's here ready to go.
I'm just barely ready myself. [laughs]
- [Jeb] What happened is that this frenetic energy
started to take the focus off of kind of concrete planning
and maintenance of, I know that's a word
maintenance, but of the career,
which is what leverages it all.
- Every time he was asked to help people, he did it.
- So cooperative and willing to do anything
and everything that we ask of him,
to the point of the guitar and the pencil out of the cable
and the whole thing.
- And he said one thing that I always remembered,
he said, gee, you know, I play one night for me
and one night for the other guy.
And later on when I was trying to put my music
to some pragmatic piece, I remember what he said.
Not being bent to extremism,
I wasn't as generous as he was, but.
- It was a bone of contention, you know,
I mean, with various people.
The band didn't think he should be doing that many shows.
I mean, sometimes he would do a show, you know,
50 miles from Columbus, Ohio a month before we
were actually doing municipal arena.
- I do about 200 concerts a year,
about 100 which are benefits.
Mostly with the group,
but tonight it's gonna be a little bit different.
- Really wanted to make people happy.
So he didn't want to go around pissing people off
or frustrating them.
It's just tough to stop the train, you know?
And he certainly couldn't get off.
- I wrote this song
about the same time I wrote "Cat's in the Cradle."
- Well, he wasn't going to be talked out of it.
- He could drive you crazy,
and he was completely unscrupulous about
It was always for the greater good,
and often it actually was.
♪ Where it's gone, I did not know ♪
- [Billy] It was inspiring, how motivated he was
to try to help others.
You couldn't help but see that.
He was like a saint.
And to the point of being a martyr.
- This is as far back as September 16th, 1976.
And he's making promises of how his life
is gonna look in November, 1976.
This one didn't take [laughs] or really,
you can see how difficult it was gonna be
for him to adhere to this over a long period of time,
because there was just too much to do.
At this time you got two really powerful people.
Sandy is a powerful person.
Harry's an incredibly powerful person.
And Harry is racing toward whatever destiny he envisioned
and worrying, getting it done.
And Sandy had been through all this stuff.
The marriage was really rocky right then.
- As you go through your life, you get a little older,
you run a couple of years under your belt.
You start realizing that the story of your life
is not always those golden dreams you're chasing,
but the people that you end up spending your time with.
And usually, hopefully, it's a spouse.
And so this is a song of a guy whose spent some time
and suddenly is seeing his life flashed back in front of him
and reassessing everything.
- Okay, Mr. Harry Chapin, "Story of a Life."
♪ I can see myself it's a golden sunrise ♪
♪ Young boy open up your eyes ♪
♪ It's supposed to be your day ♪
♪ Now off you go horizon bound ♪
♪ And you won't stop until you've found ♪
♪ Your own kind of way ♪
♪ And the wind will whip your tousled hair ♪
♪ The sun, the rain, the sweet despair ♪
♪ Great tales of love and strife ♪
♪ And somewhere on your path to glory ♪
♪ You will write your story of a life ♪
- I have an agenda, I'm not--
- [Woman] What is your agenda?
- Well, I want to matter.
Every human being wants to matter.
Gene McCarthy said it brilliantly about football.
He said, you gotta be smart enough to play the game
and dumb enough to think it matters.
Well in terms of pop music,
I'm not quite dumb enough to think it matters.
I'm just smart enough to play the game.
So I put it in the context.
I'm a man who generates about two and a half million dollars
every year, and I'm broke.
I mean my net worth right now,
my accountant told me it's zero.
It goes through me and I feel that that's my security.
My security is to be on the edge.
- What are you gonna do?
And what are you not gonna do?
And he had no idea.
You're traveling on the edge.
You know, you're always racing.
You're late.
You're traveling five times as much as anybody else.
You're just upping the odds.
♪ And all the lips you never kissed ♪
♪ Cut through you like a knife ♪
♪ And now you see stretched out before thee ♪
♪ Just another story of a life ♪
- I would hate to be 75 years old,
it's one of the things that arms me,
and say, if only I had, I wish I had,
I wonder what my life meant.
My credo, which might be interesting for
is when in doubt, do something.
Because in the long run, we're not sure about a prior life
or an afterlife.
We're all hoping for that.
But what we can do is maximize what we have
in his brief flicker of time, in the infinity,
and try to milk that.
Let's say there was an imaginary automobile company
that built automobiles,
that when hit from behind burst into flame.
Now nothing like that would ever happened in the real world,
you know that.
- Ballad writer and singer Harry Chapin died today
in a car crash in Long Island.
- [Reporter] His death came suddenly in a fiery collision
with a tractor trailer truck on a Long Island highway.
- [Woman] Harry was to have given a concert last night
on Long Island, as usual, it would have been free.
[somber music]
- In the insecurity that we have about a prior life
or an afterlife with God, I hope there is a God.
If he does exist, he's got a rather weird
sense of humor, however.
But if there's a process that will allow us
to live our days, that will allow us that degree
of equanimity towards the end,
looking at that black implacable wall of death,
to allow us that degree of peace,
that degree of non-fear, I want in.
♪ Hello, honey, it's me ♪
♪ What did you think when you heard me back on the radio ♪
♪ What did the kids think ♪
♪ When they found it was their long-lost daddy-o ♪
- I lived in a loft right below
with management loft was Jeb and Bob Hinkle.
And there was a new secretary and she comes down
and knocks on the door.
And Jeb and Bob are waiting for Harry
in the city here to talk about booking
and try to convince him not to do so many benefits.
- On July 15th, the day before Harry was killed,
there was a meeting scheduled at ICM with the great agent,
Shelley Schultz, who ran the department for ICM.
And this was a meeting to really go over some specifics
about how we have to, it's like a come to Jesus.
We've really got to focus on the career.
What we're doing here is diminishing returns.
You're hurting yourself.
And it was to try to come up with an agreement
that would help Harry, A, help his career,
and help him make more money for the charities.
♪ Wherever you may be. ♪
And on July 15th, Harry didn't show for that meeting.
I was really pissed.
I think I even called my mother.
So the next day it was rescheduled.
So he said, I'll come tomorrow,
I'm sorry, I'll just do it tomorrow.
So we scheduled it for the next day.
When we were at the meeting the next day,
and the time started to pass and Harry wasn't there,
I did kind of have a little bad feeling
because I had made such a big stink,
Harry had been so sheepish about it,
and we had set it up.
I just couldn't imagine him not showing for that.
- I got on the phone and it was a cop.
And he says, what relation are you to the deceased?
And I go, what?
He says, and turns out someone had died on the expressway.
And they didn't know who it was,
because his wallet had burned up.
He was rear ended on the expressway
and died principally because that the seatbelt
that was in the Volkswagen Rabbit
was really a one-point seatbelt,
over the top of the shoulder.
It wasn't across his waist.
The driver got, busted the window, cut his thing,
pulled him out.
So he was partly burned his hands.
The way I recognized him was that he had a watch,
a pocket watch on him.
It said from Michael Moore.
Harry had done benefits.
I told Michael Moore this recently, he went, oh my gosh.
Harry had done three or four benefits for Michael Moore
to start the Flint Voice
and then the Michigan Voice early on.
As Michael Moore says, no Harry, no Michael Moore.
- He was such a generous individual, giving.
He didn't know me from Adam, and he said, sure,
I'll come to Flint and help you out.
And they gave him a watch that said, from the Flint Voice
to a great American, or something, Harry Chapin
from Michael Moore.
And I said, dad, that's Harry.
That's the Michael Moore watch.
- I was in a meeting with the city at the time.
And I got a call from Tom.
The fact he's getting through means it's bad.
Because it was a big, big deal meeting,
had like, top guys from the city.
I said, Tom, it's Harry I says, is it bad?
He says yes, it's real bad.
I said, is he dead?
He says, Yeah, he's dead.
♪ When I look up, what should I see ♪
♪ Moon burning, stars shining ♪
♪ Sweet silver light on me ♪
- I could have been in that car.
I've thought about this many times.
And in a way my wife saved my life
because she asked me to go up to Massachusetts
to visit her cousin.
So I said to Harry, I can't make this.
- We had been in Hawaii for one of our family vacations
for two weeks.
And the rest of the family flew back.
I stayed because I had friends in Hawaii
and I was expected to come back, I don't know,
about a week later or something.
And I had called the house and no one wanted to talk to me.
They said they would call me back, which I thought was odd.
- I remember a conversation between him
and my mom when he was leaving that morning.
And there was a question
as to whether I was gonna go with him.
Which is one of those crazy sorta, you know,
I missed the plane that crashed or whatever.
But so I feel like that's part of my memory
is that I was sort of kind of excited
and like, Oh, I'm gonna have to spend the day with my dad.
And it was just sorta like, no, it doesn't make sense,
you'll see him later.
♪ Tell me why you're crying my son ♪
♪ I know you're frightened like everyone ♪
- I was on the beach, so I had no idea.
I remember it was dark by the time we got back.
Our friend came out to the car and she said,
did you hear what happened?
It's a horrible thing, Harry Chapin died on the expressway.
And she didn't know I was in the car.
So that's how I heard it.
♪ And if you take my hand my son ♪
♪ All will be well when the day is done ♪
♪ And if you take my hand my son ♪
♪ All will be well when the day is done ♪
- I was home on long Island
and there were all these different stories.
Oh, this happened, or it was a crash
or it was a this or it was that.
It was just totally unexpected.
Because he was, he was such a vital guy.
He was so alive, Harry.
You just can't imagine him the sick
or something like that happening to him.
It's just, no, that wouldn't happen to Harry.
It wouldn't happen to him.
And it did.
- We were in New York, Spyder and I, and in my apartment.
And I had WNEW on.
And I don't even know what was playing before or whatever,
but it was like a news flash.
We were in shock.
I mean, there was no other thing to say.
And then just the supreme sadness of it.
Of knowing that that light had gone out, you know,
just, it was hurtful.
- I remember crying.
I cried a lot, you know.
And my first instinct is what my first instinct
has been before that and since then, it's not fair.
This is the last guy you'd expect to die young.
Absolutely the last guy.
- I maybe wondered whether there was a God up there.
- When Harry died, I considered
it the biggest loss of my life.
- And the universe cracked.
♪ Oh, well I wonder ♪
♪ Yes I wonder ♪
♪ What would happen ♪
♪ What would happen to this world ♪
♪ Well I wonder what would happen to this world ♪
- My name is Bill Ayers, and if I can hold myself together
for the next couple hours here,
I'm supposed to lead us through this memorial service
for our friend and brother Harry Chapin.
- I'll never see, never think of Harry
without big grin on his face in a hurry,
arriving just in time to go on stage
and dashing off right afterwards because he had
to be somewhere else an hour later.
♪ One man's hands, can't tear a prison down ♪
♪ Two man's hands, can't tear a prison down ♪
♪ But if two and two and 50 make a million ♪
♪ We'll see that day come round ♪
- Now Harry's wonderful, and very loving wife, Sandy,
came up with the idea
of a Presidential Commission, World Hunger.
She gave the formidable task to Harry.
I could have told her it was impossible
if she'd ever asked me, but Sandy knew better.
And all of us in Washington told Harry that the President's
opposed to any more commissions.
It'd be impossible.
There were logistical, there were partisan reasons.
There were all these reasons why it couldn't be done.
Harry said, that's nice, and now here's how we're going
to go about doing it.
♪ Now we were the kids that made America famous ♪
♪ We were the kind of kids ♪
♪ That long since drove our parents to despair. ♪
- I think we're also both believers in the udge factor,
which is the combination of all those little things
that people do in many different areas
that end up by making a great big udge
that tends to move things.
♪ And trying not to care. ♪
- Door is open, we're ushered in to see the precedent.
Even at that meeting, even after Harry beat him down
and President Carter agreed to go along
with the World Hunger Commission, Harry wouldn't stop.
He continued to hammer into the president
the reasons why we had to have this.
The president sat there, he said, tried to say, you know,
I've agreed with you, I've agreed with you.
He did agree.
Harry wasn't gonna let him off that easy.
Not just by agreeing.
He wanted not only to agree, he wanted him to be committed,
wanted to be committed.
Now that's the difference between Harry Chapin
and those who simply give lip service to our cause.
♪ We all live the life that made America famous ♪
♪ The cops would make a point to shadow us around our town ♪
- Tom, I think, once said that being brother to Harry
was like being brother to a steam engine.
And there's some truth to that, I mean, that's what he was.
He was a source of energy, you know, in a world,
unfortunately, that's all too short of energy.
♪ It makes a body proud ♪
- And this is a song from his last album,
which I thought was one of the best he ever wrote.
♪ Remember when the music ♪
♪ Came from wooden boxes strung with silver wire ♪
♪ And as we sang the words, it would set our minds on fire, ♪
♪ For we believed in things, and so we'd sing. ♪
♪ Remember when the music ♪
♪ Was the best of what we dreamed of for
♪ And as we sang we worked, for time was just a line ♪
♪ A gift we saved, a gift the future gave ♪
- Harry had a good insight about how people
should be treated, that everybody deserves compassion.
- Harry really didn't care about doing any of these things
to get to heaven.
He always figured, that would sort of take care of itself.
He was doing things because of this life.
♪ Or we had dreams to keep ♪
- I had dreams about Harry.
♪ Well, I dreamed I saw you at the end of the rainbow ♪
♪ Years behind a young boy started a journey to the sun. ♪
- Well, all of us have had dreams about Harry,
I think that close to him.
This is one I had.
So I call this the very best place to be.
In my dreams, I saw him, alive and well once more.
He was ready to greet me on a far distant shore.
His smile lit up like the morning sun
and I could feel my spirit soar.
And he said, welcome my brother
to the treasures we have in store.
♪ Watch the circle, life is like that ♪
♪ Turn around and you might be alone ♪
- I really got involved in the issues of hunger
and homelessness due to Harry.
♪ We are the world, we are the children ♪
Literally felt, physically felt Harry Chapin crawl inside me
and I felt he was orchestrating everything.
♪ There's a choice we're making, we're saving our own lives ♪
♪ It's true we make a better day, just you and me ♪
Harry was truly the inspiration
for all the good works I did since his death.
Things like we are the world and the song,
and which is still going strong to this day.
And hand across America, five and a half million people
holding hands in one continuous line from New York to LA
all for the purpose of raising awareness
about hunger and homelessness in America.
Inspired greatly by Harry Chapin and his beliefs.
- Harry Chapin died five years ago.
It was a cruel death and a great loss.
But he'd thrown a pebble into a pond and I saw the ripples.
Reached Geldoff, reached me, reached Willie Nelson,
reached millions of people around the world.
When Harry Belafonte called me,
I was exactly in the frame of mind to build a lobby further
for USA for Africa.
Once we have those two, we could extend this idea
to the planet, so Live Aid.
- Guys like Harry was very inspirational
to what the whole purpose of hip hop was for.
To get off your butt and do something about the conditions.
- [Harry] Welcome in, welcome in to the lost and forsaken.
This is a better place to be, the very best place to be.
♪ Life is like that ♪
♪ Turn around and you might be alone ♪
- An incredibly generous older brother, you know.
He was, as he was as a man.
So you got me emotional now. [laughs]
- He really wanted to change the world, and he did.
- Harry Chapman was posthumously
given the highest civilian honor the United States
can bestow, the special Congressional Gold Medal
was awarded a Harry for his devotion to the issue
of hunger around the world.
This medal has been given by Congress to only 114 citizens
in the more than 200 years since the country was founded.
Only four other songwriters have received the medal.
George and Ira Gershwin, George M. Cohan, and Irving Berlin.
Other recipients include George Washington,
Robert F. Kennedy, Thomas Edison, and now Harry Chapin.
- [Josh] 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?
- COVID-19 is brought out the best in people.
We can't forget that 40 years ago,
there was one person and one person only
who spoke about the issue of food insecurity
and hunger in this country.
♪ Oh well I wonder, yes I wonder ♪
And if Harry were alive today, what would he be doing?
He would be doing exactly what he did 40 years ago,
and that's speaking out and creating a response.
He saw hunger as a shame of America,
and he did something about it
by establishing Long Island Cares and Why Hunger.
How grateful should we be as a nation
that's 40 years after he's gone,
this man's legacy continues stronger than ever?
- [Noreen] We certainly have helped millions of people,
hundreds of thousands of kids in the summer,
every year annually.
We help hundreds of thousands of callers
that reach out to our hotline.
And through our direct partnerships
with grassroots organizations who are feeding people,
serving food, we have been able to build their capacity
to serve millions of people.
♪ I wonder, yes I wonder ♪
♪ Yes I wonder, yes I wonder ♪
♪ What would happen, what would happen ♪
♪ What would happen to this world ♪
♪ Well I wonder what would happen to this world ♪
- [Paule] We take care of people's fundamental wellbeing.
We don't ask questions about income.
We don't ask questions about immigration status.
We don't ask about people's resources.
All we know is that people are struggling.
- Yes, I'm hopeful.
I'm out there each and every day trying to bring
to the conversation of why is there hunger and poverty?
And I think both Bill and Harry would be happy
to the fact to see that the organization, Why Hunger,
has not only tackled that question locally,
but has really tackled that question globally.
♪ Do we join the parade ♪
♪ Or do we try and turn around ♪
♪ Well, I wonder what would happen to this world ♪
- First, they ignore you, then they laugh at you,
then they fight you, then you win.
He few things right.
- But I think Harry instinctively knew
that it was gonna take a lot more than just love to survive,
that it was gonna take a strong sense of purpose,
a duty, and a good clear eye on the dirty ways of the world.
And so in keeping his promise to himself,
he reminds us of our promise to ourselves.
And then tonight, alongside Harry,
it's that promise that his spirit would have us remember
and honor and recommit,
so do something.
And may his song be song.
[audience clapping]
♪ Remember when the music ♪
♪ Was a glow on the horizon of a newborn day ♪
♪ And as we sang, the sun come up and chase the dark away ♪
♪ And life was good, for we knew we could ♪
- Life is not a neat entity.
It's a Grade C movie.
It's not a Grade a movie
where everything neatly fits into place.
It's sloppy.
But the final analysis it's terribly, terribly exciting
and to, in a sense, immerse yourself into it
and all those complexities rather than hide from it.
[harmonica wailing]
[audience cheering]
I believe in believers.
At a time when there's gigantic questions,
engagement is the answer.
I love, however, when you find some kind
of perverse patterns, and that's what circles to me are.
Hey, Tom Chapin, come on out here
and help us do something, come on.
I wrote this thing for you, here we go.
- [Sandy] Everybody learning and growing and sharing
and moving, because otherwise it's a dead end.
♪ All my life's a circle ♪
♪ Sunrise and sundown ♪
♪ The moon rolls through the nighttime ♪
♪ 'Til the daybreak comes around ♪
♪ All my life's a circle ♪
♪ But I can't tell you why ♪
♪ Season's spinning round again ♪
♪ The years keep rollin' by ♪
♪ It seems like I've been here before ♪
♪ And I sure remember when ♪
♪ And I got this funny feeling ♪
♪ That we'll all get together again ♪
♪ And again, and again, and again, and again ♪
- [Woman] Think you've really made a difference.
- I don't know, but I've been involved with the good people
with alive hearts, alive heads, and alive acts.
♪ All my life's a circle ♪
♪ But I can't tell you why ♪
♪ Season's spinning round again ♪
♪ The years keep rollin' by ♪
- I miss him, and I miss what he missed.
Here we are talking about him.
Harry, you're still here, baby.
- Let's put your hands together and have a great big ending!
♪ And the years keep on rollin' by ♪
- [Harry] You guys are outrageous.
Steve Chapin, Big John Wallace, Howard Fields,
Doug Walker, Yvonne Cable, Tom Chapin.