by: Ilene R. Prusher, Associated Press (page: D24)

Natalie Merchant,10,000 Maniacs' lead singer, songwriter and poet, knows teen-agers have the lyrics to many songs in their hearts and heads -- and that today's youth is thinking about more than just the weather.

Merchant is bringing her thought-provoking, sometimes heart-wrenching lyrics to junior high and high school classrooms across the nation in a program sponsored by Scholastic Inc. that challenges students to put their thoughts down in song lyrics. (The group will perform Sunday at Blossom Music Center).

Merchant, whose clear, penetrating voice wrestles with issues such as loneliness, child abuse and the environment on the 10,000 Maniacs' releases, including their most recent, Our Time in Eden, says she often gets inspiration for lyrics from her journal.

"I write about things that touch me emotionally or intellectually, things that enrage me, things that bring me pleasure, things that make me wonder why."

For instance, in These Are Days, she ponders environmental destruction that may make the Earth a vastly different place for future generations.

These are days you'll remember.
Never before and never since, I promise,
will the whole world be warm as this.

In Poison in the Well, she writes about a family that finds its living on contaminated ground.

Who's to blame for what's going on?
In the dark without a clue,
I'm just the same as you.

A tape cassette with six of Merchant's songs has been distributed to teachers who subscribe to six of Scholastic's classroom magazines. An extensive teaching guide contains the lyrics of the songs so they can be discussed in class, suggests ways music can be incorporated into lessons and gives tips on how students can write their own lyrics.

In addition, students were asked to submit their own lyrics in a nationwide contest sponsored by Scholastic and Elektra Entertainment, the Maniacs' record label, and spotlighted on MTV and on the PBS kids show In the Mix. ("Be the 10,001 Maniac", the entry form said.) Elektra said 16,000 lyrics were submitted for the contest.

Amy Dean, a 12-year-old pupil at Fern Ridge Middle School in Elmira, Ore., was selected as the winner for her lyrics, I'm Black and Blue, a song about a poor black woman and the hardships she faces. Merchant and other members of the band sang at the winning pupil's school in May.

"I didn't want this to be a marketing scheme," Merchant, 29, said in an interview at Elektra Entertainment's New York offices. "I just wanted kids to see that writing is a really good outlet. It's saying, 'Use your words.' I think we could all benefit by using our words effectively."

Merchant recently visited a ninth-grade honors English class at Manhattan's Washington Irving High School. Students read their lyrics to Merchant, who listened to their expressions on crime, random shootings, family problems, suicide and teen pregnancy.

Four boys wrote about police brutality because, they said, they had been victims of it. Bruno Mejia, for example, wrote, Stop the Confusion, because he said police officers threw him against a wall when they confused him with someone else. Umit Karakis said he had a similar ordeal, adding that he got harassed simply because of the way he dressed.

Merchant, who is from a small town near Buffalo, N.Y., said she was overwhelmed by the lyrics the students read to her. "They're dealing with issues I didn't have to deal with."

Fourteen-year-old Bledy Capellan wrote a song on war, derived from the images of the fighting in the Balkans and other conflicts he sees each night on television. 'I see people caring about their family and friends, people trying to flee, and all they find are dead ends.'

Scholastic said the study of popular song lyrics offers teachers a way to connect their curriculum with the media their students are tuned in to for so much of their lives.

One of Scholastic's first ventures with pop music lyrics in the classroom was the distribution of the lyrics from Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire, a song filled with 20th-century historical references.