by: Dave Jennings
It's one of those summer days when the sun doesn't so much beat down as beat up, delivering a knockout punch that leaves everyone dazed and dripping. I'm enjoyng what must be many a young man's romantic fantasy -- a stroll in the park with Natalie Merchant. The strange thing is that Natalie looks as though the heat doesn't affect her. Cool and studious in her long blue raincoat, scraped-back hair and heavy round spectacles, she looks rather like a nurse returning home from night duty, still in uniform.
We're here to discuss Blind Man's Zoo, 10,000 Maniacs' most direct and combative record to date. It's not that they've gone all rocky or prosaic on us, it's just that Natalie knows this is no time to waste words.
"It's definitely the most mature of all the albums," she declares proudly. "And I think part of that maturity as a writer is discovering how to capture the essence of whatever I want to convey to people without overwhelming them with language. I think that's the problem I had with The Wishing Chair. I took a step in closer to that clarity with In My Tribe and on this album it's further developed.
"So many times, I felt the music was at odds with my lyrics. The music was beautiful, melodic and friendly, and then my lyrics over that would be so disturbing. On this album, I asked the group to indulge me and let the music be as disturbing as the lyrics. There's a greater sense of urgency, especially with a song like Poison in the Well."
I suggest that it's a song that could apply to any environmental disaster, and is therefore likely to remain perpetually topical. Natalie's more optimistic.
"It seems there's a new awakening in America at least about just how overwhelmed the earth is with our pollutants, and it's inability to renew itself.
"I don't want to sound completely boring to people, but I'm here to discuss the album, and I can't make light of what is contained in the songs.
"We don't lack the ability to enjoy life. But the first step on the way to discovering how the world can be most enjoyable is to discover what's wrong with it."
In new songs like Dust Bowl, 10,000 Maniacs are once again describing family relationships and domestic dsyfunction - a theme that runs through many a Maniacs song and also runs very much counter to traditional pop preoccupations.
Not very rock-n-roll is it, Natalie, all this responsiblity business?
"No," she says, "but rock-n-roll is growing up. Or certain aspects of it are. On the last album, we dealt with a lot of domestic disorders like alcoholism. And I had children writing to me about their alcoholic parents or wives writing about their alcoholic husbands and how the song (Don't Talk) was helpful to them."
Do you never touch a drop?
"No, I don't drink at all. On the few occasions that I have been a drunk, I've been a bitch - a nasty bitch. And that's not like me."
Writing, quite plainly, is the one compulsive habit Merchant will never want to kick. Even now, she's planning how she's going to keep the shots of adrenalin it provides coming for the rest of her life.
"I don't see myself in 20 years standing on a stage singing Scorpio Rising. I started doing this when I was 16. Now I'm 25, and I feel like maybe I've only got a couple of years left, because it takes so much stamina. I like a quiet life, so I see myself perhaps being involved in theatre - not performing but writing. I'd love to direct films or write scripts for films. I've been approached about doing all these things. Publishers have also approached me. My first project is a children's book. I've been working under the supervision of a four-year-old."
What kind of story is it?
"It's a parable. Hopefully it'll convince children that they're responsible for what happens to their own world."
While the idea of an impressionistic, ecologically-sound Enid Blyton is appealing, I'm dismayed and puzzled by this talk of retirement from music at 27. On the way to the park, she'd been telling me her impressions of the first Elvis Costello show at The Palladium - and the Beloved Entertainer is 35. Weren't you just saying that the show was dynamic, Natalie?
"Oh, it was. I can see myself performing with a different configuration of instruments. I think that's why I've written songs like Verdi Cries and Jubilee, so that I can grow into a new type of performing. That gives me 10 years, doesn't it?"
The coat's been removed now, and spread on the grass for Natalie to sit on as we talk. In her long demure blue and white dress, she now looks less like a nurse and more like a Morman missionary. I'm prompted to ask her if she's ever been a religious believer, partly by her scrubbed, austere appearance, and partly by the last two tracks on Blind Man's Zoo. A stately church organ adds an eerie solemnity to the shocked, desolate Hateful Hate, and the LP's concluding track, Jubilee is an intriguing drama with a clerical theme.
"I was a pretty serious Catholic until I was 9 years old. Then my mother married an atheist. That caused a lot of confusion.
"I think there's an undeniable desire in everyone for an explanation of the source of life, and for a purpose - what we're meant to do. There's no logical conclusion. There's only a mystical answer, in every instance.
And of course people like to be told what to do, don't they?
"I think that's an element of organized religion - this obsession with leaders. I think rules are essential, but if a society is healthy then ethics are second nature. There's no question about the fact that rape is wrong, murder is wrong, and abusing a child is wrong - these things are essentially clear. But it's obvious that we don't have healthy societies because people don't share a common set of values. There's always debate about what's right and wrong. There's so much deviance."
Can there ever be too much deviation from norms? Aren't you being a tiny bit totalitarian, Natalie?
"Well, in a Utopia the ethics would be dictated by a common consciousness - and that'll never happen. When you say 'totalitarian', that depends on who the envoy is, distributing this truth."
This was the kind of concern that led you to write Jubilee?
"Precisely. It all happens on a symbolic level. Tyler is the innocent lamb - he has a mental handicap. The preacher seems to me to be a very distrubed man. His powerful sermons, concentrating on vengenance and righteousness, are manipulating Tyler to the point where he believes that the only way that he can serve God is by destroying what's evil, what's carnal. And to him, that's a dance hall where there are inter-racial couples, because he's been taught that there should be no mixing of the races, and no mixing of the sexes except in marriage. So he burns it down."
The scripwriter in Ms. Merchant is obviously already budding and blossoming.
"I was really intrigued by elephants, for some reason," says Natalie suddenly. She's explaining the cover of Blind Man's Zoo, on which the biggest grey wrinkles of them all are pictured in a variety of curious poses. They also star in the LP's penultimate song, Hateful Hate.
"I think it's the prehistoric links we have with these creatures that are incredibly ancient," she says thoughtfully. "I began to do a little research about them, and that prompted deeper research into the colonial period in Africa. It seemed there was a strong connection between the influx of Europeans and the disappearnce of wildlife. Then, of course, there's what happened to the people on the continent. That's Hateful Hate."
Is the single Trouble Me your first love song?
"No, I don't think so. I look on Don't Talk as a love song, becuase if there wasn't caring between those people there'd be no need for the song. What's the Matter Here? is a love song - if I hadn't cared about that little boy, who was obviously being abused by his parents, it wouldn't have bothered me and I wouldn't have written the song.
"But I think Trouble Me is the most direct. And I don't want people to believe that it's a song that only concerns young lovers. We made a video for it, which is of myself and a 68-year-old woman, and our friendship, and the friendship that she has with all these other women, who are as old as 88. There's not a single man in the video. I think that love shouldn't be so exclusive. It shouldn't be hoarded."
Blind Man's Zoo should be cherished, for it's grace and gentle passion.