I’ve seen some photos in my life, but wowee. As my father used to say to me, ‘she’s better looking than you son‘. Any-hows, I better talk about Natalie Merchant’s Motherland. I mentioned this song in the article about Lily Kershaw’s song As It Seems. Motherland is the third song featuring Natalie Merchant here and is the title track from her third solo album released in 2001. I’ve heard a lot of performances of this song, but the one I like the most is from the NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert presented below.
[Verse 1]
Where in hell can you go
Far from the things that you know
Far from the sprawl of concrete
That keeps crawling its way
About one thousand miles a day?
[Verse 2]
Take one last look behind
Commit this to memory and mind
Don’t miss this wasteland
This terrible place, when you leave
Keep your heart off your sleeve
[Chorus]
Motherland, cradle me
Close my eyes
Lullaby me to sleep
Keep me safe
Lie with me
Stay beside me
Don’t go
Don’t you go
[Verse 2]
Oh, my five-and-dime queen
Tell me what have you seen?
The lust and the avarice
The bottomless, the cavernous greed
Is that what you see?
According to the Lantern web site, Merchant said:
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.
References:
1. Motherland (Natalie Merchant album) – Wikipedia
2. Natalie Merchant – Wikipedia
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
Observation Blogger 
Natalie Merchant is one of my favorite artists. I mainly listened to her older stuff and when she was with 10,000 Maniacs. I need to listen to her most recent work. Thanks for posting!
I admit I am not well versed on her discography, but from the little I have heard I am impressed. I hope we both dig deeper into her stuff. I wrote an article of her wonderful track – ‘Carnival’ from her debut album ‘Tiger Lilly’. You might like it, but I imagine you’ve already heard it.
Both are great albums. Hope you enjoy
Yeh, when I get round to it. My priority is to get the songs that I know and love out there… thanks to those great artists. Cheers.