Keep Your Courage

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MERCHANT: Abena Koomson-Davis is the musical director of the Resistance Revival Chorus, and I met her through doing a Get Out the Vote event in the Hudson Valley. We actually staged the largest political event in the history of our area. And I just fell in love with her voice and her energy and told her that I would love to collaborate someday. And once I had these songs written, we went in the studio and put them together.

When Merchant first let slip that she was finishing up a new record, on the Sheroes podcast last summer, she said the impetus was her daughter leaving home for college. “It was either have a nervous breakdown or make a new record,” she joked, but that’s only half the story. Since late 2019, Merchant has had two serious health crises – one that might have ended her career and the other her life. Motherhood had both expanded and shrunk that world but with her daughter having left for college in late 2021, Merchant is relishing being newly free again. “I’ve been able to rediscover myself as a creative person,” she says. “I feel like I can do anything I want.”

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I've done probably 75 orchestral shows in the last 10 years," she says. "It's been my bread and butter. But we've expanded a lot of the string orchestra arrangements to include woodwinds and brass, which is exciting. And then all the new stuff – like 'Sister Tilly' live is going to be orgasmic. [Laughs.] It's going to be transcendent. Transcendent's better than orgasmic. Natalie Merchant (Photo by Shervin Lainez) I loved your duets too with Abena Koomson-Davis from Resistance Revival Chorus. Your voices just sounded so good together. Did you just cold call her too, or did you know her previously? Nonesuch has announced Natalie Merchant’s first album of new songs in nearly a decade. Keep Your Courage is to be released on 14 April 2023. These feature on Keep Your Courage, an album whose theme is love in its myriad guises. “Love will leave you wounded / love will bring you harm,” she sings on The Feast of St Valentine. “Love will be the curse and be the charm / Love will be the bruising and the balm.” The music melds traditional folk with chamber pop, lush orchestration and soul. “It’s almost as if I have to invent a new word to describe the music on this album,” says Merchant. “I don’t even know what to call it.” Natalie Merchant sees right through the sexist music industry: "The patriarchy wants to dispose of women at a certain age"

When it was recorded, I sent the song to Ian and he was very kind and complimentary. I remember how I felt when Christy Moore covered my song, Motherland, and how when I played Irish shows people would say to me afterwards that it was great to hear a Christy Moore song being covered by me!” Superb…An absolutely stunning collection, it is vintage Merchant in displaying heart, intelligence and integrity wrapped in indelible hooks and gorgeous melodies.’After several years of focusing on being a single mother, Merchant returned to songwriting as an emotional outlet, composing songs for Keep Your Courage beginning in late 2020 or early 2021. [2] These represented the first songs that Merchant had written in six years. [3] The album is a song cycle built around the concept of having a courageous heart, [4] and is a concept album composed entirely of love songs, which Merchant was inspired to write after having surgery for ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament [5] as well as an anaplasmosis infection that led to sepsis [6] and experiencing healing from love and care by others. [7] [8] Lyrics discuss feelings of isolation that she had during the COVID-19 pandemic [9] and the album also explores political themes and feminism [10] and womanhood. [11] Many of the songs are written about or to fictional or mythological characters, which is a songwriting tool that Merchant uses to approach contemporary issues. [8] [12] She also read mythology during the pandemic, as it felt like a mythological event to her. [13]