Keep Your Courage

Product Information

Though the sunglasses were a bust, and Merchant was outbid on the couple of other things she’d been tempted by, the experience was a fascinating glimpse into the life of a woman that she’d come to see almost as some sort of kindred. Like Didion, Merchant is a prolific journal-keeper, often writing on current events and social critique relayed through some kind of personal connection or experience. It was a time when there was still slavery and women had absolutely no rights whatsoever. Native American people were being murdered on their own land. And he was aware of all that. He was a reporter, and he volunteered in the hospitals of both the Union and the Confederacy [in the American Civil War], caring for men who were dying of the racism and horrible hatred that turned our country against itself. He lived through all of that but could still say, ‘I believe in the promise of this country’.” a b "An Evening with Natalie Merchant with The Knights: Keep Your Courage Tour". Lincoln Center . Retrieved May 4, 2023.

The album closes with the tender “The Feast of Saint Valentine,” a song that urges us to follow the courage in our hearts in the midst of the chaos and division around us because, Merchant sings, “Love will set you free and love will be your bonds/Love will win.” It's amazing how you can play a song before lunch and have a complete attitude change after lunch. And it'll affect tempo, it'll affect everything. And sometimes you just need to know when's the right moment to abandon a song and come to it another time.I grew up with Natalie’s music, and her voice has a special place in my conception of how music works.Keep your courageshows her – as singer and songwriter – at her most intimate, evocative, and beautiful.” Stewart, Alison (March 30, 2023). "Listen: Natalie Merchant on WNYC's 'All of It with Alison Stewart' ". All of It. WNYC . Retrieved March 31, 2023– via Nonesuch Records. Natalie Merchant with South Florida Symphony Orchestra". Broward Center for the Performing Arts. Archived from the original on March 20, 2023 . Retrieved May 4, 2023. Benitez-Eves, Tina (August 17, 2023). "Natalie Merchant Keeping Her Courage". American Songwriter. ISSN 0896-8993. OCLC 17342741 . Retrieved August 17, 2023.

The record’s lead single “Big Girls” is out now, joining the previously released “Tower of Babel” and “Come On, Aphrodite” featuring Abena Koomson-Davis (Resistance Revival Chorus). MERCHANT: (Singing) Tinctures, teas and your secret remedies and your voice like Buffy Sainte-Marie... RASCOE: Let's dive into that tune, "Sister Tilly." You're singing about a character who wears Joan Didion sunglasses. I was raising my daughter, and I’m a single mom... My days are so full that it never occurred to me that I should sit down and write a song. I was just focused on so many other things. It’s an indulgence to sit down with the piano and sing. It got to the point where I forgot that I was a songwriter, or that I could write songs.”You have more creative control if you're financing things, but it's a bigger burden for you. It's another thing on your list. And I really love doing my own production, but sometimes I just want to be the singer in the corner, working on "How am I going to phrase this perfectly? How am I going to emote this properly?" But when you're the producer, [you have to ask] "Was that the tempo that I want it to be? Is everything in time? Is everything in tune?" She is also learning Italian in preparation for a future musical project that will adapt Italian poetry. “I fund everything myself so there is no diluting the work; I don’t consult with anybody in the corporate realm. I take the risk and I accept the risk. My relationship to the music business is very remote – I exist in my own world.”

Half the women in my country have lost the ability to control their reproductive health. Men need to empathise because I feel we’re losing the fight

Gigs seen live by

a b Horowitz, Steve (April 11, 2023). "Natalie Merchant: Keep Your Courage (Album Review)". PopMatters . Retrieved April 12, 2023. Merchant is now fully recovered from her health crisis. It’s nine years since she did a tour that lasted longer than three weeks: her world tour begins this month and will come to the UK in November. “Writing is a solitary time of tinkering and pondering,” she says. “Studio work is communal but it’s more like a massive building project that requires engineering and so much diplomacy. Live performance is when I get a chance to roam around inside the structure I built and discover unexpected things, marvel at the acoustics or linger in my favourite room to notice the way the light pours in a window.” Natalie Merchant has announced that her ninth studio album, Keep Your Courage, will be released by Nonesuch on April 14. It’s her first album of new material since 2014’s self-titled record. MERCHANT: It's a powerful thing that's called empathy. And when you feel that someone's empathizing with you and feeling your pain, it is a remarkable thing that happens to us. Just the fact that I was doing it, that was what was different. [Laughs.] I redirected my creative energies for years into other areas, in other directions. I couldn't commit to that cycle of writing, recording, touring that I'd lived for 20 years before I had my daughter. It consumes so much energy and time. I wanted to be a good parent. And I'm a single mother, so I'm it.

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]MERCHANT: (Singing) Always thought the game came easy. You never thought about it twice. You never thought about it twice. Eye Of The Storm isn’t quite the song Guardian Angel is, but its beauty is complementary and it’s songs such as Eye Of The Storm that make Keep Your Courage one of the best albums released in 2023 and one that will remain a landmark recording for Merchant. Murphy, John (April 14, 2023). "Natalie Merchant– Keep Your Courage". musicOMH . Retrieved April 14, 2023.