Natalie Merchant – Leave Your Sleep/Music & Inteview
Natalie Merchant – MP3 Interview and Songs
For her first new studio album since 2003, Natalie Merchant decided to adopt a new approach to songwriting: On Leave Your Sleep, the singer has set to music the poems of writers representing different nationalities and time periods. In keeping with this diverse array of lyrical source material, the music on Leave Your Sleep spans genres from around the globe, including jazz, bluegrass, reggae, chamber music and Balkan, Chinese and Celtic folk.
In a discussion with Morning Edition host Renee Montagne, Merchant describes the album as a thematic piece about motherhood and childhood, as well as the relationship between mothers and their children. She had a fitting muse in her 7-year-old daughter and says that, in writing the album, she was partially motivated by a desire to expose her daughter to as much music as possible. Read more @ NPR.ORG