Leave Your Sleep

August 13th, 2010 in Archive by The Kitchen Sisters0 Comments

By Tess Kenner

Davia recently saw Natalie Merchant perform at the Fox Theatre in Oakland. Merchant’s latest album, ‘Leave Your Sleep,’ is a compilation of 19th and 20th century British and American poems, rhymes and children’s lullabies adapted into song. Merchant describes the album as a thematic piece about motherhood and childhood, as well as the relationship between mothers and their children. The sound is a mix of folk, jazz, reggae, and R&B.

Merchant performed ‘The Janitor’s Boy,’ a poem written by Nathalia Crane (1913 – 1998). Crane’s poem was published in 1924 by the New York Sun, when Crane was just 9 years old. Listen to Merchant’s swing jazz rendition of ‘The Janitor’s Boy.’

Nathalia Crane

Merchant also performed a “If No One Ever Marries Me,” written by another child poet, Laurence Alma-Tadema (1865 – 1940). Alma-Tadema was Dutch but moved to London when she was six years old. At the age of 18 Alma-Tadema published her first collection of poetry. Her father, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, a wealthy and famous painter, helped finance her poetry. In addition to being a poet, Alma-Tadema was also a playwright, a translator (she spoke four languages) and an active socialist. Tadema opened a community hall called “The House of Happy Hours,” where she taught children and had small concerts and plays. Listen to Merchant’s rendition of ’If No One Ever Marries Me‘