He thinks hell keep her meaning

In 1993, Mary Chapin Carpenter released one of her biggest hits, “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her,” as the sixth single off her album Come On Come On. The song became Carpenter’s sixth top ten hit on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, where it spent twenty incredible weeks – peaking at No. 2.

It also earned various nominations, such as the Grammy Award for Record of The Year as well as Song of the Year and Single of the Year from the Country Music Association.

Mary Chapin Carpenter Standing Up For All The Neglected Housewife

Written by Mary Chapin Carpenter along with country music songwriting stalwart Don Schlitz, “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her” tells the story of a wife living the usual, dreary life devoted to her family. She makes her husband’s coffee, keeps him fed, she does the laundry – at the same time attending to everything their three children need. 

For fifteen years, she has done a job that’s barely appreciated.

The song truly gives light to the maddening life of a neglected housewife. It was inspired by a Geritol TV commercial that aired in the 1970s but has since been regarded as extremely sexist and demeaning. In the short ad, a husband alluded to his wife’s many attributes and accomplishments – with that in mind, he concluded, “My wife…I think I’ll keep her.”

In a two-hour CBS special in 1993, called The Women of Country, Carpenter made women empowerment the center of interest as she performed “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her” with some of the biggest female artists in country music history, such as Emmylou Harris, Trisha Yearwood, and Patty Loveless, among others.

Make sure to listen to “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her” by Mary Chapin Carpenter in the video below.

The height of Carpenter’s approach was “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her,” from 1992’s Come On, Come On. The song was both a high-water mark for Carpenter’s career in the nascent ’90s country movement. By the standard steel-guitars-and-keyboards approach used in many of the popular country songs of the time, “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her” paints a rollicking picture of a perfect family where the wife is slowly realizing just how little she wants anything in that picture.

The song’s protagonist has three kids before 30. She then spends the next several years slowly realizing how unhappy she is. The first verse paints the perfect picture, and the second shows the cracks in it, concluding with the wife meeting her husband at the door, to tell him,

“I’m sorry, I don’t love you anymore.”

It was a big moment for the country music of the period, striking back against the “Stand By Your Man” image the genre’s female artists had often courted.

Women empowerment expressed in a song

The genius of the song, though, is that Carpenter doesn’t end in that moment of forced girl power. Her feminism extends beyond women realizing they can seize their own destinies, to the society that makes those stifling lives seem so inescapable in the first place.

The song tells of a newly liberated protagonist that finds herself cast into a working world. The only job she can find is a minimum-wage typing-pool position. It’s a contrast that could be bitter met by the jubilation of the chorus. Not to forget the backing vocal that functions as a metronome.

Maybe not everything is roses, but it’s better than being trapped.

Mary Chapin Carpenter on Women Empowerment

When it came to artists out of the new boom who could be enthusiastically embraced by music critics, one of the foremost was Mary Chapin Carpenter. Mary is the daughter of an executive for Life magazine. She came to country music through oblique angles. Her music blended country music instrumentation with strong folk influences.  Her music exemplifies the willingness to dabble in more political and feminist themes. This was unusual for the popular country music of the period. She never pushed too much. Thus, allowing her to feed mainstream country radio stories of women dissatisfied with the lives they once told to lead.  Carpenter’s music opened doors for later artists like the Dixie Chicks.

For the record…

“He Thinks He’ll Keep Her” was inspired by a 1970s Geritol TV commercial  in which a husband cites his wife’s many attributes, summarizing with:

 “I think I’ll keep her.”

The song was nominated for the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and was accompanied by a live performance music video, taken from the 1993 CBS special Women of Country, where Carpenter was accompanied by Emmylou Harris, Kathy Mattea, Patty Loveless, Trisha Yearwood, Suzy Bogguss and Pam Tillis.

And folks, if you like to read more articles about our favorite country stars, you can check Country Thang Daily website or you can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.