Mr. Tanner - Live; 1975

Harry Chapin was constantly traveling and often drew inspiration from stories he came across dealing with interesting people. He got the idea for this song after reading about Martin Tubridy, who was a cleaner from Ohio who loved to sing. Tubridy got the chance to perform in New York City, but was panned in a review that appeared in The New York Times. The spoken part in the song is taken from that review, with some artistic license. The actual review from February 17, 1972, read: "Martin Tubridy, a bass baritone who came to Town Hall on Tuesday night to give his second New York recital, performed songs by Beethoven, Schubert, Vaughan Williams, Britten and others. He was accompanied on the piano by Mitchell Andrews. Mr. Tubridy's voice seemed quite limited in amplitude, range and flexibility, and it was probably because of this that his interpretations lacked force and strong communicative power. He was well prepared and sang conscientiously, but the results were not up to generally accepted levels of professional accomplishment." (Read more about Harry in our interview with Sandy Chapin.)