The poems inspired vastly different musical settings with their themes that ranged from humorous and absurd to tragic, romantic, and deeply spiritual. Says Merchant, "It was an exciting, new approach for me to work with rhythm and rhyme schemes created by other writers. There's plenty of child-like wonder, counterbalanced with grown-up sophistication. The string arrangements are particularly stirring, recalling Joshua Rifkin's now-classic work on Judy Collins' Wildflowers. The tracks she's created range from exotic ("The King of China's Daughter") to earthy ("Peppery Man"), soothing ("I Saw A Ship A-Sailing") to swinging ("The Janitor's Boy"), mischievous ("It Makes A Change") to moving ("Spring and Fall").
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Never has she sounded so free-spirited, so full of musical adventure, whether backed by small jazzy combos or elegant chamber ensembles. The project, six years in the making, has clearly had a liberating effect on Merchant.
Among the poets she chose were Robert Graves, Charles Manley Hopkins, Edward Lear, Ogden Nash, and Robert Louis Stevenson. Merchant, celebrated solo artist and the one-time voice of 10,000 Maniacs, took on what could have been a daunting task she's adapted 19th and 20th century British and American poetry-well-known and obscure work, anonymous rhymes, children's lullabies, all of it timeless material full of direct emotion-and fashioned new songs from these words. "This album captures so many magical moments, the best times I've ever had as a musician," declares singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant of Leave Your Sleep, her ambitious, two-disc Nonesuch debut.
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