Song Exploder - Natalie Merchant - Sister Tilly

Episode Date: June 28, 2023

Natalie Merchant is an award-winning singer and songwriter from upstate New York. She was the lead singer of the band 10,000 Maniacs until she left in 1993. And then, as a solo artist, she’s put out nine albums over the last 30 years. Between 10,000 Maniacs and her solo work, she’s had multiple multi-platinum records. In April 2023, Natalie put out her first album of new songs in nine years. It’s called Keep Your Courage. And for this episode, she talked to me about the song “Sister Tilly." It’s a eulogy for a fictional character – a woman who represents the generation of women who influenced her. Women who were activists in the 1960s and 70s, when she was growing up. For more, visit songexploder.net/natalie-merchant.

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway. Natalie Merchant is an award-winning singer and songwriter from upstate New York. She was the lead singer of the band 10,000 Maniacs until she left in 1993. And then, as a solo artist, she's put out nine albums over the last 30 years. Between 10,000 maniacs and her solo work, she's had multiple multi-platinum records. In April 2023, Natalie put out her. first album of new songs in nine years. It's called Keep Your Courage. And for this episode,

she talked to me about the song Sister Tilly. It's a eulogy for a fictional character, a woman who represents the generation of women who influenced her, women who were activists in the 1960s and 70s when she was growing up. She'd know everyone's missing you. My real-telling cards, prayer flags in the eye. Your real capones and your stacks of Mother Jones, your feminist raves in your... Your zeppelin.

So loud. My name's Natalie Merchant. About three years before I wrote Sister Tilly, I went to a funeral for a beloved librarian in my small town. The memorial was so large that we had to have. have it in a school auditorium. Her husband came up to me before the memorial because I was running the sound. And he said, when I give you the signal, play this song as loud as you can. And he gave me the signal. And it was Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks. It was her favorite song.

And the entire group of people in the room started weeping and laughing and everyone stood up. And I was one of the people laughing and crying at the same time. Millions of people swarling like fly down, Waterloo Underground. Fast forward three years in the middle of the pandemic lockdown. I had a couple other friends of that same generation pass away, and we weren't able to have any memorials. One was Sally Grossman, who was a local legend in upstate New York. So between those two experiences of being at a memorial,

with a full room of people all celebrating this woman of that generation. And then poor Sally passing away and no one could gather for her. I had them in mind and how I wanted to celebrate the lives of these women and so many others of my mother's generation. I was just sitting at my piano. I wasn't really writing with the aim of making an album. I hadn't done that in almost 10 years. And I came up with the chord progression that made Sister Tilly appear.

Oh, Miss Tilly, I think you should know. Everyone's missing you here. I just said, oh, Miss Tilly. She just came out of my mouth, and that doesn't happen very often. Sometimes it's a blessing when you get a little message that says this is what your song is about. And sometimes it's curse, because then I was like, okay, I've created Sister Tilly, but I don't know who she is, where she lives. I just had to flesh her out.

I really wanted to turn Sister Tilly into a composite character, an amalgam of many different women, because I'm not really just eulogizing her. I'm eulogizing the generation of women. And so I thought that it'd be better to take characteristics from several different women I knew. The women that influenced me at a young age, introduced me to yoga, definitely all the books that I've read, films that I saw.

The influences are just the air that we breathe. Crystal's chimes and your moon flower vines. Tincture's teas and your secret remedies. Once I determined that she was a woman who was in her prime in the mid to late 60s, early 70s. I decided I would make some references to some of the music that was popular at the time. And so the cadence is very much influenced by Dylan. Your tinctures, you tease, your secret remedies and their voice like Buffy St. Marie. And all the sister Tilly's are into Tincture's T's and Secret Remedies.

Just put this clove of garlic and your lower lip, Natalie, and you'll be great. My mother was not a sister Tilly. My mother was a teenage bride who had four children by the time she was 23. She and my father were separated when I was eight, divorced when I was nine. And she went to work at the art department of the local college. And it was there that she found a group of people who inspired her to think more broadly. And there was a Swedish woman who came to teach for a year. She taught ceramics.

She had really long braided hair and wore ponchos and birkenstocks and didn't shave. And she would help me make pottery on the wheel. And I think she was my first sister, Tilly. I thought it was amazing that you could earn a living through your creativity. And I couldn't imagine a more successful outcome for life than to be an artist. With your hair in a mess. In your outdated dress, when Houston was all the rain, back in your Chelsea girl days.

We recorded up in a rural residential studio in Brattleboro, Vermont. I decided I would work with an arranger named Gabriel Cahain. I met Gabriel years ago when he was workshopping his musical. So I asked him if he would be interested in coloring my narrative. We started with a core band of drums, bass, piano, guitar. And that was Tilly's skeleton and then the strings. And it was still the fifth wave of COVID. So we decided that we would keep it to five people in the studio at a time,

which meant that these huge arrangements had to be layered. And Gabriel wrote this string part that sounds like it could be a Jimmy Page guitar solo. Your feminist raves in your Didian shades and your Zeppelin so loud, so proud. I give a passing reference to John Didion's sunglasses, and the week I did the vocal, she passed away. And that's why I dedicated the album to her,

to Joan Didion and all her sisters. And it just shows you just not a moment too soon. That's what I feel about this song. Every day we're losing more of these women. And there's so many aspects of our lives that we take for granted. The fact that I was able to have my daughter in a state the art birthing center. My mother had a fully, she was fully anesthetized when she had all four of her children and was handed some formula as she walked out the door and it would have been considered

quote perverse if she had suggested maybe I'd like to breastfeed when I was born in 1963. But by 1979, completely acceptable to have an unmedicated birth. But those are things that the women of my mother's generation fought for. Here's to your days at the barricades. Here's to the girls in the fray. Like SOP came in with alto flute

and she put on five tracks at least. And then came the oboe and then came the brass section. It's unusual in pop music to hear a lot of obo and alto flute

and flugelhorhorpe. these days. But it makes it a richer texture, richer fabric. I always make sure, even if it's just someone coming in to do a single instrument overdub, everyone had to understand what the song was about. And so the cello line in But You're Gone is just an octave, but you're gone. Remember, just a telling Eleanor the cellist, this is the moment when people realize that she's passed away. And she started crying. Her mother's a sister, Tilly. But you're gone so far away. There's several different movements to the song.

And I thought it would be great to describe her life with the more dreamy, ethereal approach, this three-four feel. And then when she's making her departure, she's got places to go. I did the vocals for almost a full week. Sister Tilly, you're a constellation. Sister Tilly, you're a white light vibration now. We tried doing it as a gang vocal, and it was a great amount of fun to have everyone standing around one microphone, but it sounded god awful. It just sounded awful. So I decided that I would go in and sing all those vocals myself. Tees fall down like rain. There's nothing but the big

forever. There's nothing but a sweet surrender now. And then at the very end, it gets kind of mystical when I am ushering up her often to the great beyond. Go on without us, don't think about us now. That's another aspect of 60's music, the kind of Eastern influence and a kind of Ravishankar, sitar kind of feel, and, you know, Sister Tilly spent some time in an ashram, of course. So I had to make some kind of reference to that. that. And who's playing that droning Thadpur sound?

The bass player had, it's actually a tone generator that he uses to tune. And I said, that is great. We have to have that. I'm becoming a bit of a sister Tilly myself, to be honest. And there's quite a bit of me in Sister Tilly. The Rilke poems and the stacks of Mother Jones. It's all, I'm a Sister Tilly in training. Not only was I raised by women of that generation who had Tilly-esque characteristics, I'm a child of the 60s and 70s, so I can't escape the influence of counterculture

because counterculture was my culture. And it is a concern of mine that the work of the Sister Tilly's of this country has not been credited to them and has not been fortified and just. cherished, and therefore will be lost. Take, for instance, bodily autonomy for women. That's a right that my mother's generation fought. I can't even talk about it. I can't because I see this image of thousands of women.

Because this is my childhood, too. Thousands of women marching in the streets of Washington, the momentum of those women, and the power. They fought so hard, and we didn't secure it, and now we're losing it. And I worry about my daughter's generation. It's almost like Sister Tilly knocked on the door,

and I had to let her in. Not many songs come about like that. And now I'm getting to share her. People are seeing themselves in her, and they're seeing their mothers and friends. And I think maybe it will fill people with more urgency to appreciate them. I'm being a real softy today.

I was just about to start crying again. Coming up, you'll hear how all these ideas and elements came together in the full song. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out of full ink. And this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishikesh, her way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists.

And it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Weinrobe. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April. And I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city. Like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzukas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings,

John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage. And then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishikash.co. Or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks.

And now here's Sister Tilly by Natalie Merchant in its entirety. with your hair in your outdated dress when Houston was over your Chelsea girl day Oh miss Tilly I think you should know Everyone's missing with your bright yellow walls and your Paschmena shawls Crystles, jimes and your moonflower tincts cheese on your sea Good remedies And your voice Like Buffy Saint-Marie

Oh, I just care That you're gone That you're gone So loud To the girls Visit songexplotor.net To learn more You'll find links to buy

Or stream Sister Tilly This episode was produced by me, Craig Ely, Kathleen Smith, and Mary Dolan. The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma and I made the show's theme music and logo. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, and network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia.fm.

You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Rishi Hereway, and you can follow the show at SongExploder. You can also get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt. I'm Rishi Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening. If you liked listening to this and you want to hear more Song Exploder, check out the Cranberries episode from May 2019. If you were a 10,000 maniacs fan, I feel like there's a chance you might have also loved the Cranberries. And they talk about a song from their last album, one that they had to finish after the lead singer, Doloresa reared and passed away.

You can find that episode and all the other episodes of the podcast at songexplor.net slash episodes or wherever you listen.