by: Howard Cohen, Knight-Ridder News Service (page D1)

I believe
fate smiled and destiny
laughed as she came to my cradle
know this child will be able . . .
know this child will be gifted
with love, with patience
and with faith
she'll make her way

Natalie Merchant's lyrics for the new Wonder follow a young girl who overcomes huge obstacles to find a place in the world. She says the song isn't about her, but her story is etched into its fabric.

Merchant, formerly with 10,000 Maniacs, proud mother of Tigerlily, a gold, Top 20 solo debut album, is in the midst of her first-ever solo tour. It brings her to Shea's Performing Arts Center at 7:30 p.m. Monday.

Merchant grew up poor with a divorced mother and three siblings near Jamestown, which she refers to as "an economically depressed small region of the country."

"I started (making music) at 17, so I didn't really have a lot of other career opportunities knocking, fighting to get through the door," Merchant says with a laugh. "Being in a band was an escape route to the cities, to see life out there and escape from mediocrity."

The young Merchant looked to the music of Al Green, Aretha Franklin and Bob Dylan as a way to ease some of the pain life threw her way.

"I remember when my parents divorced in 1972 it was such a scandal in my school. Teachers would take me aside and ask me if I was OK," Merchant remembers.

Tigerlily looks back on those days. One haunting track, Beloved Wife, the lament of a long-married man just widowed, is about her grandparents.

"My grandmother died when I was 19 and my grandfather survived two or three days. It's probably the greatest love story that I've ever known intimately -- that my grandfather couldn't imagine existing without his wife.

"It's hard for me to imagine in these times, (knowing) who I am, having the same person for 50 years," Merchant says. "There's a sadness about it.

"It's getting less and less possible because we're getting more cynical, and also people are more mobile; they are exposed to a lot and are easily dissatisfied.

"I try not to put too much of a value judgment on it -- it could be a good thing. It might be a total undermining of the everlasting patriarchy. Who knows, it might not be such a bad thing for women to be raising their children alone. There's a lot of negative press about single mothers, and they don't deserve it."

Merchant, single and without children, endures her own share of negative press.

Tigerlily is a puzzling album. For a first solo venture you might expect a commercial entry, but Tigerlily is intensely personal and mainly downbeat. Some critics have been harsh, calling it an austere, humorless downer -- it does take repeated listening to sink in, and will if you let it -- but Merchant insists her label was happy with the finished product despite its hard-to-sell sound.

"I didn't let anybody know what I was doing until I was done, and then when they heard it they said they liked it. I'm the one that gets to be concerned about the continuity of the album; they just want to know that there's a couple songs on the record that can go on the radio," Merchant said.

From Tigerlily, I May Know the Word talks about someone who knows what to do but fails to do it:

I may know the word
but not say it
I may know the truth
but not face it
I may hear a sound
a whisper sacred and profound
but turn my head indifferent

The song is in direct contrast to Merchant's career. Two years ago, her departure from 10,000 Maniacs surprised some, especially because the band was finally on a commercial upswing, but it wasn't a hasty decision -- she had announced her intentions to the band about two years before during sessions for the Our Time in Eden CD.

Merchant had performed with the group since she was 17 -- she's now 32 and simply longed to do things her way. With the single Carnival, she already has a Top 20 solo hit, something it took 10,000 Maniacs more than 10 years to achieve (with its remake of Patti Smith's Because the Night in 1993).