Maniacal Natalie Merchant: ‘What is the matter here?’
By Michael Tatum
No music figure I revile intrigues me more than Natalie
Merchant, formerly of the pop group 10,000 Maniacs. As I mentioned
in a previous column, I find her impotent three-note range, her
inexplicable drawing out of vowels and her inability to sing
consonants at the end of words unendearing. And did I mention her
obnoxious habit of sliding notes at the ends of phrases?
Still, as much as I hate to admit it, the degree to which you’re
moved by someone’s voice depends, in the end, purely on
subjectivity. So for this week’s installment, I’m going to argue
something that can be proven empirically: Natalie Merchant has
serious failings as a songwriter.
Merchant had the audacity to tell reporters around the time of
Blind Man’s Zoo that the Maniacs’ politics prevented them from
breaking commercially (it couldn’t have been her phony and
insincere music, of course). In a typically condescending remark,
she sniffled, "I don’t know, maybe we’ll do a whole album of "My
Sister Rose" songs," referring to the innocuous wedding song on In
My Tribe.
In this context, the thinly veiled spite in the patronizing
"Candy Everybody Wants" becomes painfully obvious. "Who do you want
to blame?" she asks; clearly she blames the "soft and lazy"
audience, to whose level she feels she has to sink to score a
hit.
Oh I’m sure it was hard for Merchant to "give ’em what they
want" after years of such hard-nosed musical integrity. After all,
neither she nor the band made any audible complaint when Elektra
Records forced them to cover Cat Stevens’ dorky "Peace Train" to
get airplay. And they didn’t raise a ruckus when the label coerced
them into recording with slick, soulless producer Peter Asher, the
same guy who made hit-mice out of the always-dull James Taylor and
Linda Ronstadt. Naturally, she publicly disavowed both actions
after the fact. But hey, "If blood and love are the candy / we give
’em what they want," right Natalie?
But considering her dubious "political" lyrics, maybe we’re
better off with her compromises. Take "Eat For Two," which like
"Candy Everybody Wants," deflects blame to others instead of taking
or sharing responsibility. In this teen-age pregnancy song, she
claims that young girls who yield to the sexual desires of young
boys "risk the game by taking dares with ‘yes,’" and that, "Pride
is for men."
Haven’t you ever heard the expression "It takes two to tango,"
Natalie? I may be mistaken about this, but women have sexual
desires as well. Why didn’t the song’s protagonist invest in
contraceptives? Why, because that would have forced both parties to
share the blame, that’s why. Can’t have that, now can we?
Does Merchant actually think this song portrays sexuality to
impressionable young people in a positive way? At any rate, I can’t
listen to the overwrought, a capella closer, "Five months, how it
grows/ Five months I begin to show" without breaking into
hysterics.
Most of Merchant’s unbearably mediocre lyrics collapse under
similar scrutiny. How about her melodramatic anti-slavery song,
"Hateful Hate?" The stupid redundancies of that title aside, she
blames the evils of imperialist exploitation on curiosity Â
curiosity! Â over and over again. What the hell kind of
conclusion is that? I guess words that would have made more sense,
like "greed" or "fear" or "superstition," didn’t fit the song’s
meter. Can’t sacrifice poetry for logic now, can you?
The bulk of Merchant’s so-called "political" songs follow this
trajectory: taking a well-meaning but non-controversial topic (what
normal person supports slavery?) from the realm of the banal to the
realm of the ludicrous via her clumsy writing. Take "What’s The
Matter Here." Once again, writing an anti-child abuse song isn’t
exactly what I call going out a limb  does anyone in
Merchant’s audience actually think beating kids is a good idea?
 but despite the predictably touchy-feely lyrics, it deserves
to be heard with a least half an ear.
But she trips over any momentum she might have built up when she
reaches the end, when she scolds the insensitive parent, "All these
cold and rude things that you do because he belongs to you." Rude?
Rude? I’ve always believed child abuse to be evil, but never once
did I consider it to be bad manners as well.
Possibly no other song best proves my point than Merchant’s
abysmal song about American intervention in Central America,
"Please Forgive Us." Plenty of worthy songs have been sung about
this topic: R.E.M.’s "Welcome To The Occupation" and "The Flowers
Of Guatemala," as well as a whole truckload of Clash songs (the
conviction in the music of those respective artists helped).
But what’s her big statement on this, the most worthy topic she
ever tackled? "Please forgive us / we don’t know what was done in
our name." Please forgive us? That’s Merchant’s best response to
all the terrible oppression those people had to endure (and still
do) because of wrongheaded American foreign policy? If the country
of El Salvador had put out an answer song called "No Way," would
Merchant have written a sequel called "With Cream And Sugar On
Top?"
I’m amazed how apparently literate people can mistake Merchant’s
lyrics for poetry, let alone valuable insight. To put her
pedestrian truisms ("Until the lamb is king of the beasts/ we live
so one-sided") and mangled verse (she doesn’t listen to "common
sense firm arguments, which figures) on a level with Eliot, Keats,
or even Bob Dylan (not to mention Ogden Nash) borders on lunacy.
Does Merchant really think arranging her lyrics in prose form in
her CD booklets will fool consumers into mistaking her songs for
art? Considering how many do, apparently so.
Furthermore, I’m amused how the same people can naively think
10,000 Maniacs’ music  about as far removed from punk and
even rock as Tony Bennett  has something to do with
"alternative" music. And I’m dumbfounded at those who would suggest
that the views espoused in Merchant’s lyrics  which rarely
rise above goody-two-shoes, fuzzy-wuzzy, PC dogma  have
anything to do with "alternative" politics. If Merchant and her
middle-of-the-road fans don’t want to take any risks, fine, but why
do they have to lie to themselves about being on the cutting
edge?
Rock history will bear me out: as with literature and art, time
has a way of erasing the hacks and revealing the innovators. Twenty
years ago, people thought the self-pitying, solipsistic songs of
Janis Ian and Harry Chapin carried meaning too.
And if you can’t place those names, don’t feel dumb. In 2014,
when my daughter writes a column in these pages and she
off-handedly mentions Natalie Merchant, none of her peers will know
who she’s talking about either.
The proudly cocky Michael Tatum would like to give his sincere
thanks to Robert Christgau, for his input on the songs "Hateful
Hate" and "Headstrong," and to Penny Lane, for their invaluable
research assistance. His column appears every Wednesday.