Inside The Mysterious Disappearance Of Connie Converse, The Original Singer-Songwriter

Inside The Mysterious Disappearance Of Connie Converse, The Original Singer-Songwriter

Connie Converse wrote and performed trailblazing music in the 1950s, but one day in 1974, she drove off looking for a fresh start — and was never seen again.

Folk musician Connie Converse was ahead of her time. A witty, wistful lyricist who reveled in her isolation as much as she lamented it, she's praised by many to this day as history's first modern singer-songwriter. Sadly, however, she never got to enjoy the acclaim she now receives — because she mysteriously vanished in 1974 and was never seen again. ⁠

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Depressed, disillusioned, and frustrated after her attempts to launch a music career proved unsuccessful, Converse had gradually stopped writing music at all, and her letters to her family hinted at her deep loneliness. "Human society fascinates me and awes me and fills me with grief and joy; I just can't find my place to plug into it," she wrote to her brother in 1974. In another letter, she wrote, "Let me go, let me be if I can, let me not be if I can't." Soon after, Converse sent letters to her family and friends saying she wanted a fresh start, then packed up her Volkswagen Beetle and drove off — then disappeared forever.⁠

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Visit the link in our bio to read more about Connie Converse, the obscure musician whose "genius" was finally recognized decades after she vanished.⁠

Connie Converse never released a commercial album, yet nearly 50 years after she vanished from the face of the Earth, her music has gained more recognition and acclaim than ever before.

She was ahead of her time, a singer-songwriter whose music sounds surprisingly contemporary considering when it was made. Her lyrics are witty, solemn, and at times funny, but with an unspoken sense of longing, reveling in her isolation as much as she lamented it.

She was a female folk songwriter at a time when such a thing was largely unheard of — and no one knew her name.

It’s entirely possible her name would still be unknown, had her friend Gene Deitch not held onto tape recordings of Converse’s music for half a century — tapes that were recorded in a New York City apartment kitchen in 1954 and kept a secret from the world until 2009, when they were compiled into the album, How Sad, How Lovely.

But while her music has earned a cult following since its public release, the woman who wrote it never took her rightful place in the spotlight. In 1974, just after her 50th birthday, the downtrodden, depressed Converse sent letters to her family and friends saying she wanted a fresh start in life. She was never seen again.

This is her story.

A “Polymath” And A “Genius”

Elizabeth Eaton Converse was born on August 3, 1924, in Laconia, New Hampshire to a minister and his wife, whose household was strictly Baptist. She had two brothers: Paul, who was three years older, and Philip, four years younger.

Per the BBC, Philip, who later became a political scientist, once described his sister Connie as both a “genius” and a “polymath” when she was young. “I do not use the terms lightly,” he said.

While in New York, Converse spent her time writing poetry, drawing, painting, and learning to play the guitar. She began publishing essays with The Far Eastern Survey and worked at a printing house in the Flatiron district. She had an apartment in Greenwich Village, and it was there that she wrote her music and performed it for her friends.

As chronicled in The New Yorker, Philip Converse did not follow his sister to New York. Instead, he moved to the Midwest, and the two kept in touch by exchanging letters.

In one of these letters, she wrote to him:

“Being a complex and inward personality, I have always found it difficult to make myself known. I generally conceal my own problems and listen attentively to those of others.”

Converse’s introspection reads like an unfortunate prediction. For one reason or another, she could never make herself known — and her recognition only came many years after she vanished.

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