'I Realized How Much I Valued Singing'

AFTER SURGERY FOR A SPINE DISEASE LEFT HER UNABLE TO SING, THE CONTEMPLATIVE SONGWRITER IS BACK ON TOUR WITH HER FIRST ALBUM IN NINE YEARS  

- EILEEN FINAN

It’s an unseasonably cold day in upstate New York, and Natalie Merchant is bundled in a purple parka for a Zoom call. She turns her computer screen to show the thick haze outside that has drifted in from Canadian wildfires, obscuring the sky above her rural home and making the unusual summer weather all the more disturbing. “We haven’t been able to go outside for days,” says Merchant, 59. “It’s hard to think about anything else.” Then suddenly, an unwanted guest appears at her window, stopping her midsentence: a 2-in. long gypsy moth caterpillar. “They’re so destructive that the forest canopy is disappearing,” she explains. “I spent the entire winter crushing their egg sacs. But there she is, so I’m going to knock her down.” She excuses herself to do battle with the invasive species that has been devouring woods across the Northeast: “I will risk going out and breathing that air to kill that caterpillar!”

Since she first hit the music scene in the early ’80s as the teenage frontwoman for the alt-rock band 10,000 Maniacs, and later as a solo artist, Merchant has been a warrior for a cause. Racism, pollution, colonialism, poverty, child abuse—all have inspired Merchant’s songwriting. Her activism and her literary lyrics—once praised as “the thinking man’s Madonna,” she playfully countered, “I prefer the Emily Dickinson of pop”— have earned Merchant, who has collectively sold 15 million albums, a devoted fan base.