Video Premiere: The Chapin Sisters “All Through the Night”

The single from The Chapin Sisters is just gorgeous.  Firstly, it’s absorbing musically, particularly the vocal harmonies and captivating melody, but ‘All Through the Night’ also represents the fundamental beauty of loving, caring relationships and the joy of parenthood.  The story of how the song came to be written is equally delightful – ‘All Through the Night’ began as a lullaby that Abigail Chapin sang to her daughter before the song grew into this gentle anthem of familial love.  Production and acoustic guitar from Rusty Santos (Animal Collective, Panda Bear), electric guitar from Noah Kittinger (Bedroom) and Bennett Littlejohn’s pedal steel give the song additional depth and texture and allow the sisters’ voices to soar.

Abigail explains the song: “I originally wrote ‘All Through The Night’ as a lullaby when my oldest kid was a baby.  I wrote it as an intimate ditty for my kids, but once we added Rusty Santos’ and Noah Kittinger’s contributions, it became more of an anthem than a lullaby.  Even in its original form as that private little lullaby, there was evidence that ‘All Through The Night’ had the makings of the anthem it has become.  We would make up the verses until some of them stuck.  She would start mimicking me and singing along, which completely defeated the purpose of trying to get her to sleep.  I never really thought of ‘All Through The Night’ as material for The Chapin Sisters.  I never even wrote it down over the years. It would just run through my mind. But, when you remember the lyrics and tune of a song that’s never written down, then there is something there.”

The chorus and, more importantly, the feel of ‘All Through the Night’ will stay with you long after listening.  The accompanying video reinforces the song’s emotional impact.  Particularly effective are the scenes around the camp fire when the sisters look up to the heavens, lost in the music, and the appearances of the children.

This is the second single from siblings Abigail and Lily Chapin since they returned from a five-year musical absence and follows ‘Bergen Street’, which was released earlier this year.  Abigail shares: “Lily wrote ‘Bergen Street’ as she was leaving Brooklyn to move back to the Hudson Valley village that we grew up in.  It’s a bittersweet ode. Not a sad moment, exactly, but wistful.  We thought we’d be city people forever, but during the pandemic, I eventually did the same thing. We packed up our little families and moved back to the woods and the grass and the driveways…We are slowly making our way through our recordings, one song at a time.  It’s been interesting to approach it this way, focusing on one thing until it’s done, instead of flitting around from song to song.  I guess leaving the city is a theme in our lives right now, and it is showing up heavily in this batch of songs that will become our next album.”  When the next album appears, the first full-length since 2017’s ‘Ferry Boat’, it promises to be utterly captivating.  In the meantime, absorb yourself in this.