Merchant's Treasure: Natalie Merchant's Mixtape (Vol. 1)

How I First Heard About Natalie Merchant...


I remember in the mid 90's, A lovely song of 10,000 Maniacs reached my ears. The voice of the young singer, Natalie Merchant, fascinated me with her tender voice. This was the first time I heard the Because The Night, later I found out it was a well-known cover version of Patti Smith's song from 1978. In fact, I quite forgotten this song until I listened to her last monumental album Leave Your Sleep (2CD) which made ​​me go back and listen to most of her discography. While wandering among those rich albums, I decided to make several mixtapes which demonstrate to a certain extent the high quality of this singer.

From Childhood To Maturity - First Mixtape

This Mixtape begins with a cover version of Neil Young's song 'After The Gold Rush' from an  album with the same name. Other songs from Live in Concert (1999) which appears on this mixtape are 'Seven Years' and 'Gulf Of Araby' which I find more impressive on Live Shows. I also included 'In The Ghetto' which was preformed live  in one of her Chicago's shows. 

Her collaboration with The Chieftains in represented here by 'The Lawlands of Holland', An old Biritish folk song which appears on her Retrospective 1990-2005 (2005). I've also chosen to place 'She Devil' from her concept Album Ophelia (1998) together with three songs of her latest Leave Your Sleep (2CD) (2010): The beautiful 'Spring and Fall: To A Young Child', 'The Land Of Nod' and 'Crying, My Little One'. 

The mixtape is completed with 2 songs of Motherland (2001): 'Tell Yourself' and 'Motherland'. I tought it would be nice to add something from her 10,000 Maniacs era, So I've put 'These Are Days' inside.

Enjoy This mixtape....