By Karla Peterson
Her songs have tackled everything from teen pregnancy and child abuse to the curse of depression and the evils of advertising. But even when Natalie Merchant was singing about modern-day trials and troubles, her voice had the sumptuous warmth of a really good hug. With her second solo album, Ophelia, she's got the songs to match.
"With this album, I really set out to speak to young Americans, although they'd probably hate to know that," said the former lead singer for 10,000 Maniacs. "I wrote a lot of songs with them in mind, because I wanted to comfort them and reassure them. I wanted to say, 'Contrary to what people may tell you, life is not miserable.' They're the group that is most receptive to and aware of pop music, and a lot of the messages they're getting are not reassuring. I just wanted to add my voice to the din."
For all its comforting intentions, Ophelia is not big on mindless cheer. Frozen Charlotte is as stark as its title, while My Skin warns the listener, You kiss me now, you'll catch your death. But on Break Your Heartand Life Is Sweet, Merchant's honeyed vocals take the sting out of grief and angst, while her lyrics move from sympathy (How painful it must be/To bruise so easily.. inside) to urgent optimism (I tell you life is sweet/In spite of the misery) without making a pit stop at preachy.
Like Carnival and Wonder (from Merchant's 1995 solo debut Tigerlily), the best of her new songs are a balm for most psychic wounds. And on Ophelia Merchant is an enthusiastic practitioner of rock 'n' roll healing.
"If you're the kind of person who says, 'I don't care for music,' or 'I don't listen to lyrics,' maybe the message doesn't matter," said Merchant, who performs at a sold-out show Monday at Copley Symphony Hall. "But there are people who do put a lot of expectations onto musicians. When a song touches them, they feel that there is a kindred spirit in the world, and that makes them feel less alone. That's the way I respond to music, and I think it's the way a lot of people respond to my music."
When she first discovered her power to connect, Merchant was too young and too shy to appreciate it. Just 17 when she met the Jamestown, N.Y.-based Maniacs at a party, Merchant grew up on stage and in public. She isn't crazy about her early recordings ("Sometimes I wish I could take everything we recorded before 1991 off everybody's shelves"), but she loves the days that made them possible.
"For the first year or so, it was very frightening," the 35-year-old singer-songwriter said from her home in upstate New York. "We played in a lot of hostile places, including a lot of biker bars. I remember putting on my thrift-store cotton frocks in the ladies' room, and being surrounded by all these women with tattoos. I'm not sure how, but we always managed to find something to talk about.
"The situation kind of forced us to be in a part of town we would not normally be in, and I think that was a good thing. One room of the bar had all the hardcore bikers, and in the other room, the kids were dancing and we were doing Gang of Four covers and Clash covers. A lot of good things came out of that. People joined the food co-op, and we started a kind of artists' colony. It was a great time, but it all fell apart when no one could find jobs. All of our friends started going to college or going off to the cities to find work, and we started to tour because we couldn't make a go of it at home."
Over the next 12 years, 10,000 Maniacs made six albums, growing from a college radio cult band to a mainstream favorite with alternative-rock cachet. In 1993, the band released the inevitable MTV Unplugged album, and Merchant joined R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe at MTV's Inaugural Ball, where the duo serenaded the Clinton faithful with a gorgeous rendition of To Sir With Love. That same year, Merchant left the band of her youth, and in 1995, she released Tigerlily, the multimillion-selling album that earned her a seat at the grown-ups' table.
"I remember my manager telling me that during Christmas, my album sold 40,000 copies in three weeks. I came from a town that had 25,000 people in it, so I couldn't comprehend figures like that. But I was also relieved, because I have a relationship with a multimedia conglomerate (Merchant's albums are released by Elektra Records, a Time Warner company), and they look at that. I feel like my goals are different from their goals, but I have to acknowledge that the corporate goals exist. And that's why I sighed a big sigh of relief."
The success of Tigerlily gave Merchant the time and breathing room she needed to make the adventurous Ophelia, and her high-profile spot on last year's Lilith Fair tour gave her the kind of exposure the singer has learned to love and embrace. The shy Jamestown girl has become an outspoken, pragmatic adult, and the career she stumbled into has turned into an opportunity she can't pass up.
"I can do social work through my job and be very effective," Merchant said. "People listen to what I say, for better or worse. So I try to remind them that there are people who are disenfranchised and people who have needs that we should respond to. I also like to remind people that I'm learning all the time. I'm not the ultimate authority on anything."