10,000 Maniacs
Blind Man's Zoo

Why is Merchant's writing so often associated with the poetry of Emily Dickinson?

I don't know. Perhaps it's equally restless, just as sensual yet abstract. Perhaps both emblemically address the silences and imprisonments of their era. Their versification is sparse, severe, ironic. More cryptic and elliptical is that of the New England poetess, more constructed for snapshots is that of Merchant, but both are austere, immersed as much in their "extinguished era" as in the Bible. Maybe. Perhaps, more simply, for their extraordinary sensitivity, with which we collide, for their radiant femininity, in front of which we are rendered speechless and can only admire.

The very young Natalie Merchant, daughter of Sicilian-Irish immigrants, who would soon reveal herself as one of the most original and recognizable voices of American rock, was the singer of 10,000 Maniacs, born in 1981 right in her Jamestown (New York) and devoted to an intellectual brand of folk-rock. The sextet included guitarists (and composers) Robert Buck and John Lombardo, as well as keyboardist Dennis Drew.

The 10,000 Maniacs individually took their name from a 1964 b-movie horror, Two Thousand Maniacs! by Herschell Gordon Lewis, a film at the origin of splatter/gore cinema. In the plot, the phantom inhabitants – nothing more than devoted homicidal maniacs – of a Southern town, Pleasant Valley, dismember various North American tourist couples during the celebrations for the centennial of the Civil War.

Merchant's charismatic songwriting, not without literary ambitions, reveals a strong personality and a refined sensitivity, as well as a clear social commitment. If the tones are often inclined to pessimism, there is, nevertheless, no despair. She does not hesitate to tackle heavy topics: child abuse, domestic violence, alcoholism, illiteracy, poverty, and power structures. Her songs are populated by soldiers, arms dealers, single mothers, the homeless, and mentally alienated individuals. When she talks about love, she doesn't do it in a trivial way (Trouble Me: "“Torment me, disturb me with all your anxieties and sufferings. Torment me on the days when you feel exhausted. Why let your shoulders bend under this weight when my back is strong and vigorous? I offer you trust if you torment me”).

After a debut mini inspired by Gang of Four, the Maniacs grafted onto their New Wave a strong acoustic structure with elements of country, folk, jangle rock, pop-rock, with also traces of Caribbean music and reggae (Secrets of the I Ching in 1983 is the first album for the independent Christian Burial Music). Unlike their homeland that ignores them, John Peel notices, adores, and promotes them. The second LP, The Wishing Chair, Elektra 1985, is recorded in London under the aegis of Joe Boyd (also working with REM, with whom they share affinities) and, as luck would have it, initiates comparisons with Fairport Convention. Lombardo leaves the group in Merchant's hands on the eve of In My Tribe (Elektra, 1987), where they perhaps hone their style between electric folk and collage rock.

Blind Man's Zoo (Elektra, 1989), produced by Peter Asher like its predecessor, doesn't lack the usual folk-rock arpeggios and her magnificent flexible and hypnotic vocals – a clear, severe, and penetrating contralto – but is generally accused of veering excessively towards easy pop shores. A convenient judgment, to dismiss in haste the album that entered the charts! The band's paradigmatic introspection doesn't waver unless due to the themes addressed, as this is decidedly the Maniacs' most political album. Notably, the booklet released at the time offered all the lyrics translated into four languages. The album isn't musically watered down. It stands well on the fast pace of the more radio-friendly tracks and on the rough and solemn atmospheres of the more introspective songs. The lyrics are the strong point, both in writing and in interpretation.

Here are some translation excerpts.

Eat for Two: ""Oh, baby blankets, baby shoes, baby slippers, and baby spoons, baby blue walls. Dream child in my head, you are a nightmare born in a borrowed bed”.

The Big Parade: "“His hand slides along the wall made slippery by the rain.
What would life have been like if one less name had been etched on this wall?
But for God's sake, he died more than 20 years ago.
Leaves his letters asking
«Who made my mother cry? Was it Washington or the Viet Cong?»,
deliberately slow steps follow one after another.
They drag them away from the black granite wall
towards other monuments so white and clean.
O, Potomac, what you have seen.
Abraham had his war, but an honest war.
Or at least that's what they teach you in school”.

You Happy Puppet is a vague soul disco, otherwise the young Merchant seemed to enjoy dancing. But with words like these: "“How did they teach you to be
just a happy puppet dancing on a string? How did you learn all the characteristics of servile buffoonery? Tell me something, if the world is so insane, does it make you wiser to let someone else manipulate the strings that make you nod your head up and down?”.

Poison on the Well, where synths and guitars chase each other in a thrilling ballad, "“I wonder how long they've known that our well is poisoned, but they made us drink anyway”, refers to the Love Canal chemical waste scandal of the Hooker Chemical Company in Buffalo, which caused numerous cases of cancer and infertility.

Hateful Hate, a powerful act of vocal strength by Merchant, speaks of colonialism. "“Calling men of adventures for a jungle safari. Come conquer the beast, its claws, and teeth. Look death in its eyes to know you're alive. European farms expanded in the colonies by virtue of civilization plans”.

Jubilee, with a string quartet, cites Matthew 17:15 ("«Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is lunatic and suffers greatly; often he falls into the fire and often into the water».) and tells – in snapshots – of a fundamentalist's attack on a multi-ethnic dance hall.

The theme that connects the tracks together, according to the author, is betrayal: a nation betrays its citizens, one people betrays another, a young woman betrays herself, a fanatic betrays a creed, etc. It may not be a masterpiece, but it's a more than decent album. It was, right upon its release, my first from them, as well as one of my very first CDs. It reminds me of a remote, Eden-like era, where lyrics were important. The Maniacs with Natalie, moreover, are a guarantee of quality and poignancy.

Subsequently, they expanded further the excellent Our Time In Eden (Elektra, 1992) and the great summa Unplugged (Elektra, 1993). Merchant would step down to undertake a successful solo career (see Motherland of 2001), while the Maniacs would try again with the revived Lombardo and violinist Mary Ramsey. But without Merchant, not everything is possible. As if that weren't enough, talented Buck died in 2000.

Never do I hear the word "escape"

Without my wrists trembling

Without immediately being seized by anticipation,

Without feeling ready to go!

Never do I hear of great prisons

Brought down by soldiers, without in vain

Shaking the bars like a child

Still condemned not to make it!

(Emily Dickinson)