Carpenter was born in Princeton, New Jersey, to Chapin Carpenter Jr., a Life Magazine executive, and Mary Bowie Robertson. Carpenter lived in Japan from 1969 to 1971 before moving to Washington, D.C.[3] She attended Princeton Day School, a private coeducational prep school,[4] before graduating from The Taft School in 1976.[5]/nCarpenter described her childhood as "pretty typical suburban," with her musical interests defined chiefly by her sisters' albums of artists such as The Mamas & the Papas, the Beatles, and Judy Collins.[6] When Carpenter was 16 her parents divorced, an event that affected Carpenter and that she wrote about in her song "House of Cards."[3] Carpenter spent much of her time in high school playing the guitar and piano; while at Princeton Day School, her "classmates threatened to cut her guitar strings if she played "Leaving on a Jet Plane" one more time."[7] Despite her interest in music, Carpenter never considered performing publicly until, shortly after graduating from Taft, her father suggested that she perform at a local open-mike bar, a stressful experience for the shy Carpenter, who recalled, "I thought I was going to barf."[8]

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