Friday's Grief Song, 4.14.23

EDIT- This week’s post went out a day early. Such is the life of work from home/mothering a toddler- what day is it anyways?!?!?

This week’s song is one that is quite possibly the anthem of Tears of Things. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sung this song, listened to this song, or how the first plaintive phrase being crooned “where the hell can you go?” has soothed me when I am feeling my most bereft over the destruction of the natural world.

It’s from Natalie Merchant, and I have my mother, Anne Burke for introducing this song to me. I believe my mother learned of this song in an online environmental group when Derrick Jensen’s work was really taking off, long before he went off the deep end with his alarming trans-hatred. Anyways, this song became a bit of an anthem too in these online portals where fellow earth lovers grieved and raged out loud about the myth of human supremacy and how industrialization is killing us all.

The song is Motherland, off her 2001 eponymous album Motherland. (funny that last week’s song was also off an album release in 2001).

Listen on YouTube here or stream on Spotify.

Motherland
Natalie Merchant
2001

Where in hell can you go
Far from the things that you know
Far from the sprawl of concrete
That keeps crawling it's way about
1000 miles a day

Take one last look behind
Commit this to memory and mind
Don't miss this wasteland
This terrible place
When you leave, keep your heart off of your sleeve

Motherland cradle me, close my eyes
Lullaby me to sleep
Keep me safe, lie with me
Stay beside me don't go
Don't you go

Oh my five and dime queen tell me what have you seen
The lust and avarice
The bottomless, the cavernous greed
Is that what you see?

Oh, motherland cradle me, close my eyes
Lullaby me to sleep
Keep me safe, lie with me
Stay beside me don't go

It's your happiness, I want most of all
And for that I'd do anything at all
Oh mercy me
If you want the best of it
Or the most of it all
If there's anything I can do at all

Now come on shot gun bride
What makes me envy your life
Faceless, nameless, innocent
Blameless and free
What's it like to be

Motherland cradle me, close my eyes
Lullaby me to sleep
Keep me safe, lie with me
Stay beside me don't go
Don't go

Motherland cradle me, close my eyes
Lullaby me to sleep
Keep me safe, lie with me
Stay beside me don't go
Don't go

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