by: Karla Peterson

As anyone who has listened to a 10,000 Maniacs, song will tell you, leader singer Natalie Merchant has an uncanny way with words. They dance in her presence, forming graceful lines that tell extraordinary, stories about everyday people.

As Natalie Merchant will tell you, words also have their way with her. They stick in her head, clogging her brain with useless information, making her crazy enough to live up to her band's wild name.

"I've always been a person who memorizes lyrics, and it's annoying sometimes. I can hear a Madonna song once, and it will be playing in my head for weeks and I can't get rid of it," says Merchant.

"I'm always imaging that someday I'll be in someplace wonderful like Nepal and the theme from Gilligan's Island or The Fiintstones will be going through my head as a procession of monks goes by, and I won't be able to stop it."

Gilligan's Island and The Flintstones? Pretty giddy subject matter for the usually somber Merchant. Then again, Merchant isn't as serious as she used to be. Neither is her band.

With their new album, Our Time in Eden, Merchant and 10,000 Maniacs - guitarist Robert Buck, keyboardist Dennis Drew, bassist Steve Gustafson and drummer Jerome Augustyniak - have produced the most beautiful and optimistic work of their 11-year career.

Rich with Buck's glowing guitars and Merchant's vibrant vocals, Our Time in Eden has a sunny spirit that gives weighty songs, such as I'm Not the Man, a sympathetic warmth and cheerier tunes, such as the ebullient These Are Days, a joyful radiance that is impossible to resist.

It is the sound of a band that is mature, secure and happy. The sound of the renewed 10,000 Maniacs.

"We had a real need to make music that was more encouraging," Merchant says. "This record was written over a long period of time - between two springs and a summer - when we had a lot to be thankful for.

"I think we were also responding to (the 1989 album) Blind Man's Zoo, which was overtly political and pessimistic. I was trying to focus on things that were encouraging and on people's capacity for growth and change."

When 10,000 Maniacs ended the Blind Man's Zoo tour, some changes were definitely in order.

The years of non-stop touring and recording had turned the usually mild-mannered musicians into testy, tired road warriors who weren't sure they had the will or the desire to keep moving. So they did what many hard-working folks dream of doing - they just stopped.

"We were really cranky and we didn't want to continue on like that, so we decided the best think to do would be to separate from each other and from recording. I had nothing to say at that point, and I don't think we could have made an album as good as this one if we had gone directly to the studio rather than taking a break."

During her time off, Merchant moved from rural upstate New York to the wilds of New York City. She also travelled, took piano lessons and worked as volunteer in a Harlem homeless shelter, where she was known not as "Natalie Merchant the singer," but as "Natalie the nice volunteer girl."

For Merchant, who had been singing with the band since she was 17, the time off was a luxury she couldn't afford to pass up.

And as a result, she rediscovered her love of music and her attachment to the only career she's ever had.

Armed with these revelations (and her improved piano playing), Merchant got back to the business of writing songs.

What she came up with was a collection of tunes about the devastation of divorce (Jezebel), the importance of friendship (Stockton Gala Days) and the simple joys of nature (These Are Days).

Challenging music

Once again, Merchant's words did not fail her. And once again, the music of 10,000 Maniacs lived up to the challenge.

"Our main (criterion) for any, song is that it moves people.

"In the many encounters I've had with people in this country, I feel a spiritual void, and I think music can be a way to fill that void," Merchant says.

"I don't want to sound like a hippie, but I feel like so much of the music I'm exposed to doesn't seem to have soul.