If you could fill a vale with shells from Killiney's shore

The journey concludes with some oddities...

Rarities (1998–2017) (2017)

They may be rare, but some of these are also decidedly odd

1. The Village Green Preservation Society
This is a perfectly acceptable version (if a bit lifeless) but it's SUCH a English song that you have to wonder why she picked it - it's certainly no Kate Rusby version, although I'm not such a fan of the original Kinks version). I also don't like this song because it rhymes "society" with "society" in too many places.

2. Too Long At The Fair
This is a Joel Zoss song, who I've never heard of but he's made three albums in '75, '08 and'15 And this is a perfectly fine song, but completely inessential.

3. Order 1081
This is a David Byrne song - who I have heard of! This is off Here Lies Love, his 2010 album which is a rock musical based around the life of Imelda Marcos - and I never realised it was all guest singers, so I might check it out. It's quite a peculiar song though.

4. To Love Is To Bury
And now we're visiting The Cowboy Junkies - it's got lovely piano and strings on it and Natalie's voice certainly suits that accompaniment.

5. Saint Judas
Finally, a Natalie track - this is off Motherland and it's a nice bluesy version.

6. Birds & Ships
This is one we've previously on Billy Bragg's Mermaid Avenue - and it's notable because it's one of the few bearable tracks on that album.

7. The Lowlands Of Holland
This is a traditional song - there's nothing wrong with it except the penny whistle, which I just can't be doing with.

8. Sonnet 73
Shakespeare! Natalie wrote the music though and I quite liked this.

9. Learning The Game
Buddy Holly this time - you've never guess it though. She's done a good job with it and it's another one I liked.

10. My Little Sweet Baby
And back to the traditional numbers - this is just a lullaby and I've no idea what she was thinking of including this.

11. Political Science
This is another song we've met before on Randy Newman's Sail Away album - she's not done loads with it but it still works quite well

12. Build A Levee
Another track from Motherland and she's bluesed this one up as well - it's fine, but hardly essential.

13. Sit Down Sister
This is a traditional gospel number - fine, but it doesn't really suit her.

14. The Gulf Of Araby
This is a track I'd heard before and knew was a cover, but I knew nothing about Katell Keineg, the original artist - and she's had quite the life. She's Breton-Welsh, has acted in Pobol y Cwm, was friends with Jeff Buckley and sang at his memorial service and has also sung backing vocals for Iggy Pop and Natalie Merchant on Tigerlily. I checked her out and she'd definitely in the same vein as Natalie, but with an even more distinctive voice. Back to this song, I liked it.

15. Portofino
And finally, we have an original Natalie track - and it totally wasn't worth the wait because she only goes "da da da" in a few places.

Nobody really needs any of this but it was quite an interesting set of diversions - I'm going to include "Learning The Game" and "The Gulf Of Araby" on the playlist because they're both decent covers of decent songs.

And the only fact of interest from Wikipedia is that if you're looking for a physical copy of this it's going to set you back because it was only available as part of a ten CD boxset - discogs.com has a few for about £100 or you can go for the pre-order copy with the autographed pic for £225. Bargain!!

Live In Concert (1999)

I'm not going to give you a full track breakdown here but it's a mix of tracks from Tigerlily, Ophelia, 10,000 Maniacs album and cover versions, all of which are fine musically but interesting from a selection point of view. Firstly, there are five tracks from Tigerlily but only one from Ophelia, which considering the latter had only been released a year before seems an odd ratio. The 10,000 Maniac tracks are Dust Bowl (from Blind Man's Zoo) and Gun Shy (from In My Tribe) - both of which are fine tracks, but not obvious picks for me. 

And she's certainly not settled on the obvious on the covers front either, going for David Bowie's "Space Oddity", Neil Young's "After The Gold Rush" and Katell Keineg's "The Gulf Of Araby" (discussed above). And, considering my general antipathy for all things Young, I think "After The Gold Rush" is probably my favourite track on the album, but I also like the version of "Gun Shy" because it's a little less frenetic that the original version. None of it is essential, but it's all enjoyable enough and amusing how her voice sounds so young in comparison to later albums (but it was 26 years ago now!)

And with that we're almost done, but I've got a couple more things that popped up during random Google searches along this journey to bring to your attention. Firstly we have Photograph, an R.E.M. & Natalie collaboration which was apparently planned to appear on Automatic For The People but never quite made - I'd not heard it before and I really like it. There are quite a few videos of  Natalie & Michael together out there on YouTube - I liked "To Sir, With Love" (the original by Lulu was the best selling song in the US in '57, getting to #1 making her one of only two Scottish women to do so, along with Sheena Easton) and "Red Rain" (along with Peter Gabriel).

And finally, I have to include Michael, Natalie and Billy all together on a really tiny stage doing a version for John Prine's "Hello In There". They all look sooo young (but it was 35 years ago), so for completeness, let's end up with Natalie and Billy doing "Way Over Yonder In A Minor Key" from '24 - they've aged pretty well! So thank you to Natalie for a fascinating journey over the years - I've not loved everything, but I've not hated any of it and some of the twists and turns have certainly been "interesting".

I thought I'd exhausted the niche but surprisingly well populated topic of artists I love who had debut albums in '83 but it turns out there's one more that I feel I should do because, like all the others, my familiarity with their work tails off with later albums and so they deserve a visit. And you're just going to have to wait to find out who they are (and no, it's not Madonna or Metallica).

Keep Your Courage - just a bit too earnest