AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM : #354: NATALIE MERCHANT/10,000 MANIACS

A GUEST POSTING from STEVE McLEAN

JC writes……

Steve submitted this with the suggestion that it be used across two separate non-ICA pieces, partly on the basis that with 8 songs on offer for each of the 10,000 Maniacs and solo years, there weren’t enough songs.  I’ve decided to roll things into one, with the result that you get to enjoy a wonderfully expansive ICA totalling 16 songs.  After all, there’s nothing to say that these MUST be 10 songs in total, although it is my preference. That’s enough from me….so without further ado, please give a big and warm welcome to Mr Steve McLean………

Hello internet friends! 

I love Natalie Merchant. She’s awesome, she’s caring, she’s non-judgemental and while she’d probably get you ethically made wooden toys for Christmas and not the Transformer you specifically asked for, I reckon she’s still great fun to be around.

I went to see her recently at the Palladium and while she was prone to bouts of tears, she also picked fluff off of Billy Bragg and teased him about his jumper. You see, FUN! pure fun.

There’s a Faceook group called Alternative Ballpark run by Phoenix Phil for music fans who are mostly over 40. They have a great regular segment called “The Wondertour”, which is a run through of the back catalogue of an artist. I recently hosted the Merchant / 10000 Maniacs Wondertour to a reaction audience of sometimes double figures (she’s what the people want). These choices are essentially a distilled version of that project. I’ve picked 16 songs. 8 on each ‘side’. One side for the Maniacs and one for Natalie. It’s not enough but it’ll have to do. It his however ripe for splitting into two posts on this fine blog. (JC adds….see above intro!!)

SIDE ONE  – 10,000 Maniacs

I’ve ignored the first album and first EP. They’re both pretty hard work and the best songs turn up later on the on the major label records.

Scorpio Rising – (from The Wishing Chair)

The second single from the major label debut record and what I like to think of as the first proper Maniacs single. Up until now the band had the training wheels on (This post is going to invoke some strong FANZINE FEELS!) But this has all the hallmarks of their classics; powerful but not overbearing with lyrics that smack you around a bit. It’s one of those songs where the meaning changes with the mood the listener is in.

“Treat me to an honest face sometime. AMAZE ME NOW!”

Fucking hell, right?

Back O’The Moon – (from The Wishing Chair)

The lyrics always make me think of my pal Jenny who saved me from going up the wall during lockdown. It’s a great example of why you need to be tuned into Merchant to hear what she’s singing. ‘A car make go, where’s the operator?’ is actually ‘A comical where’s the end parade’.

I love Natalie but sometimes it’s like listening to a BBC Micro.

The Painted Desert – (from In My Tribe)

This is either a song about ghosting or an affair. There’s a feeling of someone being strung along. The way Natalie Merchant of 10KM writes about love often feels it’s from a position of someone who has never been in love. Like she just detaches herself and watches what happens to others. There’s a real sadness to it.
”I haven’t read a word from you since Phoenix or Tucson. April is over, will you tell me how long before I can be there?”

He’s never going to leave her Natalie. He’s a bastard!

A Campfire Song – (from In My Tribe)

I don’t think this is an anti-capitalist number, it’s more of an observation on how greed taints the soul (FANZINE FEELS!). This might be about a Scrooge McDuck or a Cyril Sneer type. Whoever the case study is, they don’t recognise their own folly. Someone clever once said ‘No one who is evil realises they’re evil’ (it was me but I was quoting) The bridge features a sneaky cameo from Michael Stipe. I picked this song as I know he’s popular around these parts.

Please Forgive Us – (from Blind Man’s Zoo)

Remember the Iran / Contra affair? In the 80s Congress blocked giving any aid to the Contras of Nicaragua during their “revolution” as they were spending it on cocaine smuggling and landmines. Reagan & Co bypassed congress by selling arms covertly to Iran and using the money to fund the Contras. This wouldn’t have been quite so bad if the White House hadn’t spent most of 81 to 85 trying to convince the rest of the world not to sell weapons to Iran.

The internal thinking / excuse was that this might thaw relations between the US and Iran and that Iran would be ever sooooo grateful to the US that they’d release the hostages they had. This ultimately turned into an Arms-for-Hostages scandal and an Ignoring-Congress scandal that would have implicated Reagan, George Bush Snr and Lt Cl Oliver North. Guess which one of those three took the fall?

Reagan went on TV and denied everything, then he went on TV and said it happened but he didn’t know about it and then he went on TV and said it happened and that he knew about it but he didn’t know that he knew about it. Boris Johnson got his notebook out and started scribbling. Everyone was eventually pardoned by Bush when he went from VP to P.

10000 Maniacs watched all of this unfold and then penned a song saying sorry to all the kids killed by landmines, the villages ransacked under the name of revolution by the US trained Contras and all of those oppressed in Iran by US weapons.

“Please forgive us, we didn’t know”

Headstrong (from Blind Man’s Zoo)

Petulant, unreasonable and entirely relatable. It takes balls to admit when you’re wrong. It takes even bigger balls to admit that you can be a dick rather than admitting you’re wrong. Although ultimately it’s a plea for the other person to listen and the last verse changes the meaning considerably. It’s the frustration you feel when you’re arguing with someone who is always being entirely reasonable. My Dad used to say ”Don’t trust anyone who doesn’t call you a cunt in an argument” But I think that was just a get-out-of-jail card for him to call people cunts. Clever.

Noah’s Dove (from Our Time In Eden)

Natalie has had her heart broken and Imma gonna punch the guy. Religious imagery plays a part in a lot of 10KM songs but here that gives way to pity and a loss of trust (she’s not angry, just disappointed in you). If bedroom dwelling songs are an art then this is a masterpiece (fanzine McLean strikes again). It’s looking out the window on a bus, planning your future with the girl who works in the library or walking in the rain. It’s sad but it’s a hug.

Eden (from Our Time In Eden)

It’s strange that this wasn’t really a single, it got one of those promo-US-Radio type releases. it has the hallmarks that appealed to daytime One FM of the time. Steve Wright would have fucking loved this (the afternoon posse would too, but those bitches liked what Steve told them to like.) The lyric ‘To pick a rose is to ask your hands to bleed’ is astounding. It floored me when I first heard it. The whole song feels like it’s about paying the piper or the boatman or whatever your reference of choice is. It’s about understanding we’re all flawed and weak and that every personal utopia, be it a relationship or a friendship or just a peaceful time will always end. Blimey!

SIDE TWO – NATALIE MERCHANT SOLO 

1993. Merchant quit and went solo. The rest of the band carried on with Mary Ramsay as the lead singer. Lately, Leigh Nash of Sixpence None The Richer has been fronting them. That’s not a bridge we’ll cross.

Natalie enjoy a worldwide smash hit record with Tigerlily. She was the darling of the Coffee Table Book set and edged herself from MTV to Radio 2. Later, while the world was enjoying Central Perks and Deep Blue Something / The Rembrants / Hootie Blows Fish, Natalie was releasing gothic folk records about children’s toys that froze to death. Take that you pastel-Gap-advert-loving fucks.

Jealousy (from Tigerlily)

It’s a brutally honest song about Jealousy (hence the title). It doesn’t shy away from what a small minded, petty, childish emotion jealousy is. The word ‘deb’ is slang for Debutante, you might have known that but I didn’t, which to me adds an angle of class gripe to the song and suddenly she’s being fucked over by the poshos and that gets my back up. It’s gone all Pretty In Pink but with without Duckie being too creepy. I’m not Duckie.

Frozen Charlotte (from Ophelia)

Frozen Charlotte is the name of a Victorian china doll. The name originate from a poem called “A Corpse Going to a Ball” about a girl who didn’t want to cover up her pretty dress while traveling to a party so she froze to death (I’ve got a lemon yellow and pink bowling shirt that I feel similar about). I think this is a song about those tragic folks who take their own lives and their love for those that are left behind. It’s the confused feelings that troubled souls have. It’s quite beautiful.

The Ballad Of Henry Darger  (from Motherland)

This has strong Nick Cave vibes to me but I don’t know if that’s just because it’s about someone called Henry. The real Henry Darger was an orphan who worked in hospitals and went to war in WW1. He was an advocate for caring for abandoned and poorly treated children. Today he’s a renowned outsider artist and novelist, although his novel The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion is still seemingly unpublished, it certainly takes all of those wanky overly long naughties book titles like ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ or ‘The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared’ to the fucking cleaners though, right?

Bleezer’s Ice-Cream (from Leave Your Sleep)

A great example of Natalie doing after hours jazz that will subvert our teeny-poppers in their bobby-sox. Except it’s a poem about ice cream flavours. Flavours straight out of Bod’s Milkshake Quiz. Ebeneer Bleezer runs Bleezer’s Ice Cream. Bleezer Good, Bleezer Good. There’s a guy in the place he’s got a bitter sweet ice cream taste.

Tuna taco baked potato, Lobster litchi lima bean and Mozzarella mangosteen all sound rank but you’d try the Checkerberry cheddar chew, right?

Lulu (from Natalie Merchant)

A gentle tribute to Louise Brookes, the silent film start (in case you thought it was dedicated to the ‘…and the Luvvers’ fame or the album by Lou Reed and Mehtallica, although she did inspire that album cover).

She’s the same star of OMD‘s Pandora’s Box and Marillion‘s Interior Lulu. Natalie tracks her life from early chorus girl to scandalous German superstar who gave Hollywood a proper fuck you. I can’t do the life of this lady or the song justice so go to the wiki entry and check her out.

‘Christened in straight up gin’

She Devil (from Butterfly)

This has a sinister feel to it, it’s got an undercurrent of menace and the saxophone is sexy af but also evil, the breathy verses add to the danger and it feels fucking amazing. If only, and I say this thinking that she almost certainly hasn’t heard the 1998 infectious / grating hit, IF ONLY the whole vibe isn’t ruined in the first line with the lyrics

COMIN’ ATCHYA. CLEOPATRA.

Hunting the Wren (from Keep Your Courage)

A cover of the Lankum song. Hunt the Wren is a Manx custom (Isle of Man). It takes place on St Stephen’s Day and it’s basically a group of locals (three surnames between twenty of them) doing a celtic version of Morris dancing. I spent my formative years there and I can tell you that even on their best days it is cousin-fucky as fuck. Things like this don’t help. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunt_the_Wren)

There’s an Irish tradition too called Wren Day which I think probably has more actual hunting but retains the essential 6-toed feel.

Tower of Babel (from Keep Your Courage)

The tower in the bible is an explanation of why humans speak different languages. The story of the Tower of Babel explains the origins of the multiplicity of languages. God was concerned that humans had blasphemed by building the tower to avoid a second flood so God brought into existence multiple languages. Thus, humans were divided into linguistic groups, unable to understand one another.

God is a bit of a prick. Imagine punishing people for not wanting to be drowned again. The song itself is a bluesy stomp with a cracking horny section. You hear that God? I said HORNY! Get it round ye, ya fud.

This is really just my favourite songs of today. There’s absolutely stacks of stuff she’s recorded, even with only two albums of original material since 2001. She’s released a couple of folk cover albums, songs with Billy Bragg, The Kronos Quartet plus loads of one offs and guest appearances. A deep dive into her output is well worth your time.

If you see her, remind her she agreed to marry me in a dream. And by that I mean I had a dream once where Natalie was singing the her cover of ‘If No one Ever Marries Me’  and I was in the audience. After the song I shouted ‘I’ll marry you Natalie’

She asked me to stand up, looked at me and then said ‘hmmmm…. anyone else?‘

Even my dreams are pricks.

STEVE