I've been sitting here for the longest time - reading all the warning and the danger signs

The journey continues...

Motherland (2001)

This is the last one I actually bought (it's the last "normal" album she made for a bit) and it's the one I listen to most frequently. But not that frequently, so it will nice to catch up with it.

1. This House Is On Fire
After the restrained nature of Ophelia, she's off the leash here and she's not happy at all. Given the album was completed two days before 9/11, the lyrics seem extremely prescient "I don't have the gift of the prophecy telling everybody how it's gonna be - there's a wild fire catching in the whip of the wind could start a conflagration like there has never been" but she was actually referring to the '00 presidential election. It's got a very interesting musical sound to it (Wikipedia describes it as "Middle Eastern violin–reggae beat fusion") - this is a strong opener and I like it.

2. Motherland
The title track slows things down nicely with some beautiful lyrics and melody - I believe it's about refugees and their relationship with their home country, but as Natalie herself has pointed out, things could be considered with a whole new view after 9/11. I particularly like "Now come on shotgun bride - what makes me envy your life? Faceless, nameless, innocent, blameless and free - what's that like to be?". This is another fine track and I also have to mention that Christy Moore has done a fantastic cover version (which is so well liked in Ireland that Natalie has said "when I do ‘Motherland’ in Ireland, they think I’m covering his song”) and Joan Baez has also covered it.

3. Saint Judas
This is a song about the jolly old topic of lynching, so she gets a bit spikier on this than usual - it's got a nice bit of edge to it. And it's got some pretty hefty lyrics too - "Yea, though you may walk in the valley in the dark, there's no greater evil than the darkness in your heart".

4. Put The Law On You
This is a nice "spurned lover" song which goes through a subtle shift to end on a "you did actually told me you were a shit, but that still doesn't make it right" vibe. It's an interesting song though because it's all sung in a very neutral tone, whereas the words are quite emotional.

5. Build A Levee
And this is an interesting follow-up to the previous song because it basically says the only way to avoid such men is to "build a levee" to keep them all out - "beware of the devil my child, beware of his charming ways - you'll fall under an evil spell just looking at his beautiful face". It's another nicely constructed song - I like this one too.

6. Golden Boy
I've always quite liked this song without loving it because I just assumed it was about privileged rich kids, who I felt didn't deserve my sympathy. But the internet tells me it might well be about serial killers or school shooters ("meteor rise from obscurity - all it took was a killing spree") so that makes it all OK, right?!?

7. Henry Darger
I've listened to this songs many, many times and I think I once knew, but I'd completely forgotten that Henry Darger was a real person. And quite an intriguing person too - he worked as a hospital cleaner in Chicago but when he died in 1973, they found a 15,145 page manuscript along with several hundred accompanying illustrations among his papers - so I'm guessing the general theme here is "don't judge a book by the cover". And quite the Wikipedia rabbit hole I went down here, because I learned his estate is STILL being legally contested!

8. The Worst Thing
This is OK, but it's a bit simple and cynical to me on the "don't trust them fellas" front. It's a decent enough song with limited lyrics, but they get the job done I guess.

9. Tell Yourself
This is possibly my favourite Natalie solo track - I absolutely love a song that has a nice twist at the end. The lyrics relate to a woman and her negative self-image, with the singer understanding ("I hear you counting, I know you're adding up the score"), questioning ("Who taught you how to lie so well and to believe in each and every word you say?") and attempting to address the situation ("tell yourself that you're not pretty - look at you, you're beautiful"), before accepting it's actually a much bigger problem ("tell yourself it's nothing new, cause everybody feels it too"). And then comes the last line kicker with a stone cold fact that just can't be argued with - "there's just no getting 'round the fact that you're thirteen right now".

10. Just Can't Last
This is a nice enough song, but doesn't really offer much more than a pretty positive "life will get better" message.

11. Not In This Life
Similar to the comment above, but in this case the positive message is "I won't fall for that again".

12. I'm Not Gonna Beg
I don't mind this one, but it's got a curious message - she seems to be telling someone she's not gonna beg them for love because she's not that interested in them in the first place. 

Yes, it does kinda slide off into nothingness at the end, but that's partially due to the quality of what's come before - I think this is a very decent album with a nice amount of variety and it's my favourite of her solo offerings. The playlist obviously has to include "This House Is On Fire", "Motherland", "Build A Levee" and "Tell Yourself" - I'm going stick "Henry Darger" on there as well because it's nicely different from the rest of them, but "Saint Judas" is unlucky not to make the cut.

Wikipedia tells us the album is dedicated to the victims of 9/11, but was completed two days beforehand so was not influenced by events (although I think it's not quite that simple). Somewhat amusingly, Natalie wanted the album cover to feature a picture of children wearing oxygen masks - and the record company were very much influenced by 9/11 when they told her they weren't having any of that so "a photograph of a demure-looking Ms. Merchant was used instead". 

There are some interesting names involved in the album with T-Bone Burnett co-producing, Van Dyke Parks plays accordion on "Motherland" and Mavis Staples provides backing vocals on a couple of tracks - if you're not aware of any of these people then go and check out their Wikipedia entries because they've done a LOT in their combined 245 years (and they're all still with us). Critically, reviews were moderate to favourable and commercially it did pretty well in the US, getting to #30, very well in New Zealand getting to #11 - but absolutely nothing here, which is a shame.

discogs.com tells us you can pick up a copy for four quid but, unlike Ophelia, this is available on vinyl (thanks to a '13 re-release on a different label), so you can spend up to £31.99 to get that - which doesn't seem too bad a price. If you can't guess from the length of the post and the fact that I've mentioned it a few times, I really like this album and think it's a bit of a shame it flew under the radar here - but them's the breaks! 

This was her last one on the Elektra label and she struck out on her own label next time - and it's fair to say things take a bit of a left turn in the process...

Ophelia - A very restrained album