Natalie Merchant's third studio solo album, MOTHERLAND, is in stores now. Co-produced with T Bone Burnett (Elvis Costello, Wallflowers, Sam Philips, Oh Brother Where Art Thou?) MOTHERLAND is a collection of twelve new and original songs. Renowned for her stylistically eclectic albums, Merchant forges ahead with MOTHERLAND, moving in exciting new directions both musically and thematically. This latest offering covers more diverse emotional and intellectual territory than any release in Merchant's career, now two decades in progress.
"Creating a sequence for the songs on this album was a big challenge and I hope that I performed a successful balancing act. I've never written songs more overtly political or so intimately personal before."
Merchant's core band of musicians made up of ERIK DELLA PENNA (guitar, banjo), GABRIEL GORDON (guitar), GRAHAM MABY (bass), ELIZABETH STEEN (keyboards), MATT CHAMBERLAIN (drums), DAVID RALICKE (sax). is augmented by guest appearances by gospel music legend MAVIS STAPLES, VAN DYKE PARKS (accordion), GREG LEISZ (guitar, banjo, mandolin), and PATRICK WARREN (chamberlain). STEPHEN BARBER provides string arrangements
three songs.
Merchant began her recording career in 1981 as the lead vocalist and lyricist with the folk art rock pop band 10,000 MANIACS, making six albums with the group - HOPE CHEST (1982), THE WISHING CHAIR (1984), IN MY TRIBE (1987), BLIND MAN'S ZOO (1989), OUR TIME IN EDEN (1992), 10,000 MANIACS MTV UNPLUGGED (1993) - before setting out on her own successful solo career - TIGERLILY (1995), OPHELIA (1997), NATALIE MERCHANT LIVE IN CONCERT (1999). Her thought provoking lyricism has earned her comparisons to figures more literary than musical ("The Emily Dickinson or Flannery O'Connor of Pop"). Her reputation as a songwriter of quality and her sweet, distinctive voice have long captivated a loyal audience and those who have followed Merchant's evolution as an artist will surely appreciate her newest offering.
In painterly texture and cinematic scope, MOTHERLAND opens with a haunting arrangement of Arabic-influenced strings and flutes in parallel intervals, underscored by distorted electric guitars and a reggae rhythm. When Merchant sings, "I don't have the gift of the prophesy for telling everybody how it's gonna be," she describes a people on the verge of rebellion. The chilling fact that this album was completed two days before the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon amplifies the disturbing edge of these lyrics.
"I actually wrote THIS HOUSE IS ON FIRE during the WTO protests in Seattle and the presidential ballot dispute in Florida. I saw people taking to the streets to find their collective voice and to be heard. I decided to ask Stephen Barber to write the string arrangement in that particular mode because I am a fan of North African pop music, especially Om Kalsoum, the famous Egyptian chanteuse. It is very strange how events are conspiring to give this song possible new meaning I could never have imagined."
"The title song, MOTHERLAND has much deeper resonance since the events of September 11th and its aftermath. I was far more cynical when I wrote, 'Motherland cradle me, close my eyes, lullaby me to sleep, keep me safe, lie with me, stay beside me, don't go.' Now the song is a desperate plea for innocence, to be 'faceless, nameless, innocent, blameless and free,' expresses a craving we all share now for the world we took for granted and
ibes a people on the verge of rebellion. The chilling fact that this album was completed two days before the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon amplifies the disturbing edge of these lyrics.
"I actually wrote THIS HOUSE IS ON FIRE during the WTO protests in Seattle and the presidential ballot dispute in Florida. I saw people taking to the streets to find their collective voice and to be heard. I decided to ask Stephen Barber to write the string arrangement in that particular mode because I am a fan of North African pop music, especially Om Kalsoum, the famous Egyptian chanteuse. It is very strange how events are conspiring to give this song possible new meaning I could never have imagined."
"The title song, MOTHERLAND has much deeper resonance since the events of September 11th and its aftermath. I was far more cynical when I wrote, 'Motherland cradle me, close my eyes, lullaby me to sleep, keep me safe, lie with me, stay beside me, don't go.' Now the song is a desperate plea for innocence, to be 'faceless, nameless, innocent, blameless and free,' expresses a craving we all share now for the world we took for granted and lost. Suddenly there seems to be no hiding from our past as a nation or our present, or our future. For me it's the death of nostalgia and dreams."
A longtime fan of gospel music, Merchant explains the presence of legendary gospel singer MAVIS STAPLES on two songs:
"Although I've always had a passion for rhythm & blues and gospel music, I've been reluctant to make obvious references to these styles in my own writing but with MOTHERLAND I felt it was time to 'fess up and acknowledge some of my teachers. I've spent countless hours listening to gospel and soul singers. These are some of the women who taught me how to talk about love and lust, how to cry and comfort, how to beg and when to be proud. I don't want any barriers of race or class in my music."
"I wrote SAINT JUDAS in response to an exhibition at the New York Historical Society that contained the most difficult images I had ever seen. It was the history of lynching in photography. I knew that Mavis would understand my words and deliver them. I wanted to hear that incredible powerhouse of a voice, but I also asked her because of her close association with the Civil Rights movement. The Staples Singers wrote 'Freedom Highway' and 'Why Am I Treated So Bad?' during the acts of civil disobedience and desegregation in the Deep South. They sang along side Dr. Martin Luther King on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Singing with Mavis was an historic event for me."
In the strident R&B tune BUILD A LEVEE Mavis is the knowing voice of caution warning her daughter of the danger that she'll find in men:
"Beware of his cold, dark eyes full of bold and unholy deceit he'll tempt you with a whirling pool of lies and promises he'll deny or that he will never keep"
"I've never done anything camp before on album. PUT THE LAW ON YOU is a song that breaks a piece of new ground."
"GOLDEN BOY was a song I wrote without being absolutely certain of its meaning. During the recording the engineer commented that he couldn't get the image of the infamous boys from Columbine High School out of his head. I sud-denly realized that I was addressing the unhealthy tendency we have as a culture to fix our attention upon our deviant and violent outcasts. Names of
