Harry Chapin recorded a popular he sings as the character who is a pathetic middle aged man who is too old to A.M. radio, too young to get a new line of work.

meanspeed_music_tempo+map - Harry_Chapin_W_O_L_D - blue

He pleads to his wife that he understands about her decision to leave him in favor of a man who is not stuck in the field of music, and lower than that, “hit music.” The graduate school trained half of my brain tells that to the popular music side of my brain, oh, maybe every hour or so!

On another note, I am proud to have gone to college with Harry’s daughter. She handled her father’s fame and death with complete aplomb and I have nothing but the highest respect for her. I was surprised to find out who she was: like other children of the famous, she had used an alternate last name as not to draw attention to herself, and it was not until years after my graduation did I find out who she was. I was frankly shocked, and I do not shock easily on these things. It was whispered that Harry Chapin’s daughter was a student, but did not want to be known as such because, as I could only imagine, every social occasion would bring up the invitation for someone to ask, “SO, what was it like when he finally became popular and the passed away?”

On an online search, using every legal tool and search engine I could, the tempo line of the most famous version of this song, or even the tempo itself. I found it: not. Therefore I decided to do the tempo work myself and pass it on to anyone interested.

For purposes of the bpm graphs on this page, the introduction is measured from the first beat. Beyond that anything in regard to my desire to show exactly where a lyric falls gave way to my desire not to break the law and reprint lyrics. I know that in many cases the lyrics are all over the place anyway, and the harm in showing where they fall on the tempo charts in a learning situation is nothing.

So said, the Chapin brothers who survived Harry are very earnest men who are vigilant about protecting copyrights, especially because of the many charity causes reliant on an income stream from some of Harry’s work operate on a shoestring and I do not want to even have the appearance of jeopardizing their cause.

Meanspeed-Carlton-Spencer Speed Summary
song title=W*O*L*D*
composer=Harry Chapin

harry_chapin-wold-tempo_graphic_meanspeed_school_bpm_map_b.jpg

performer=Harry Chapin

bpm_graph - W_O_L_D - Chapin - meanspeed 3 dimensional

recording measured from=iTunes® Purchased AAC audio file
file type=m4a
file size=9.8 MB
bit rate=256 kbps

bpm_graph - W_O_L_D - Chapin - meanspeed 3 dimensional 3

sample rate=44.100 kHz
profile=Low Complexity
channels=stereo

bpm_graph - W_O_L_D - Chapin - meanspeed music school 22

/Ian Andrew Schneider/

October 29, 2009

Meanspeed® Free School

New jersey, United States

calibration=Joe DeLuva, James Manning-san supervising
time measurement equpment=Nike® and Seiko® 300 lap stop watches
trials measured=9
arithmetic mean speed/average expected tempo=75.0 beats per minute (bpm)
file size=9.8 MB
intellectual property rights=(p) Elektra Entertainment Group Marketed by Warner Stategic Marketing, 2005
album=Rhino Hi-Five, ‘Harry Chapin EP,’ purchased on Apple®’s iTunes®