She Feels Lucky . . . and Brave : Music: Country singer Mary-Chapin Carpenter, appearing at Knott’s, is bold on new album.

On Mary-Chapin Carpenter’s new album, “Come On Come On,” the singer sounds a bit, well, cocky.

How else to describe a giddy couplet like “Dwight Yoakam’s in the corner trying to catch my eye, Lyle Lovett’s right beside me, with his hand upon my thigh” that sort of pops up out of nowhere in the album’s first single, the buoyant “I Feel Lucky”?

“I don’t know if cocky is the right word, but there’s a strength in the words and production,” Carpenter, 34, said during an interview at a Hollywood hotel. “It’s not like I’m swaggering, but I feel brave. I trust it will serve me well.”

Whatever the terminology, Carpenter, who plays at Knott’s Berry Farm tonight, has a right to display a little swagger on this, her fourth album. Her last one, 1990’s “Shooting Straight in the Dark,” established her as a legitimate country star; a Cajun-flavored song from it, “Down at the Twist and Shout” earned her a Grammy for best female country vocal performance.

Her success has come without her compromising her artistic vision. Carpenter’s music tends to be categorized as country purely by default. Its literate folkiness is more in the tradition of John Prine, Steve Goodman, Carole King and such contemporaries as Lovett, Rosanne Cash and Nanci Griffith than anyone named Dolly or Tammy or Loretta.

She was born in Princeton and lives in the Washington area. So she’s not a country iconoclast, just true to her own roots. Still, how many other Life magazine execs’ daughters who grew up in both New Jersey and Japan have gained mainstream country acceptance?

Now that she’s got it, she’s taking it as permission to be even a bit bolder.

“I can’t deny,” she said with a mock shrug, “it’s been nothing but a pleasure that (the success) has given me not only room to stretch, but confidence.”

It started with “Twist and Shout,” for which she enlisted musical help from members of the Cajun band Beausoleil. Carpenter had no experience with Cajun music other than as a fan, and no idea whether she should be able to work credibly in that setting. But sure enough, there she was singing the hit on the Grammy telecast--with Beausoleil backing her up.

“For me it’s this marvelous place to be, where I can indulge my taste,” she said. “I learn from everyone I work with. It’s music I can’t really adopt as my own, but it’s like putting on clothes for a day. That was a wonderful experience.”

So she tried to expand upon that with the new album. The irony is that this time, the boldest move isn’t the flirtatious nod at Yoakam and Lovett, or a version of Lucinda Williams’ rocking I-can-have-it-all anthem “Passionate Kisses,” or a condemnation of traditional, stifling roles for women in “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her.” The biggest risk this time is the relatively straightforward “Not Too Much to Ask,” a real country duet with real country singer Joe Diffie.

“That’s the most country thing I’ve done in my whole life,” she said. “When we played it back (in the studio) I was going, ‘Is that me?’ . . . Our voices are very disparate, but when we did the song there was a sympatico quality.”

For all her confidence, she still sometimes wonders if it’s all just a dream.

“I spent my 20s trying to figure out what I wanted to do,” she said. “Now I’m halfway through my 30s and I’m just getting accustomed to who I am. Hopefully timing-wise it coincides with being able to capitalize on it. But I could wake up tomorrow and go, ‘I lost it.’ Some days you feel very strong, and some days you don’t.”

Mary-Chapin Carpenter sings tonight at 7 and 9 at Knott’s Berry Farm, 8039 Beach Blvd., Buena Park. The shows are included with park admission, $9.95 to $22.95 ($12 for adults after 6 p.m.). (714) 220-5200.