She's playful as she describes the "ugly" side of gardening, clearly aware that her reputation as a po-faced vegetarian, non-smoker, social activist has often disguised her sense of humour like one of her dour, depression-era dresses. "I'm not the member of some bizarre cult with little attendants who precede my path and move insects."

Natalie also had to dig deep for her first solo album, Tigerlily, not only with some thoughtful soul-searching about her future but also financially. Her 30th birthday proved to be the catalyst as she left the Maniacs, bought her first home, fired her old management and financed her own album before re-negotiating with Elektra. "The thing that made this record so much easier to make was that I was the defined leader", she says. "I felt the situation with 10,000 Maniacs was a bit unbalanced and unfair to me because I was contributing so much and instead of being rewarded for it I was sometimes treated as if I was just being bossy. I didn't want to be a little autocratic tyrant."

Merchant was understandably circumspect about the musicians who worked with her on her debut, especially as she wanted it to be an intimate, informal situation with all the band living at her house while they recorded the album. "It's hard to find a person that you'd even like to have a conversation with let alone a relationship that is as much a test to your ego as playing music with someone. It's like trying to find a person to have sex with. Unless you're totally comfortable with that person it's not going to be very good sex". The band all ate meat-free meals together on her New England porch, but as the vegetarian of 17 years explains, "if you gave me a dead fish I wouldn't know what to do with it anyway."

Here is the record review from the same magazine:

After leaving 10,000 Maniacs on a commercial high note with the success of their Unplugged set, Natalie Merchant funded and self-produced the sessions for this, her debut solo album. Merchant's independent attitude has paid dividends through a sparse, clear-sighted record which should quickly establish her as a major solo artist.

Her storytelling flair and the quite distinction of her voice elevates Tigerlily above the deadening sludge produced by most MOR-inclined artists. The orthodox, country-flavoured backings certainly don't quicken the heartbeat but their stark functionalism is preferable to the confused easy listening which often clouded her ideas inside the "arranged marriage" of 10,000 Maniacs.

As a result, Merchant's tales of urban streetlife (Carnival), broken Hollywood dreams (San Andreas Fault), and different relationships (Beloved Wife, Cowboy Romance, The Letter, Jealousy) are her most evocative since the Maniacs' definitive In My Tribe album in the mid-1980's.

Rating = 7