The Friday Fillip – Two Women

This is a tale of two women separated in time by just about a century and in age by more than three decades — unlikely companions, you may think.

The first woman I might have come to know if I’d ever entertained 10,000 Maniacs, but for some reason, likely having to do with the badness of the eighties and maniacs of other sorts, I missed that group — and Natalie Merchant, the lead singer and, of course, the woman I’m on about. I’ve just now come across the latest albumn in her solo career, Leave Your Sleep (thank you, CBC) and one song in particular that’s hooked me but good.

That song is “The Janitor’s Boy.” It’s an bluesy, almost Dixieland, gentle and funny love song, of which a fragment…

…Oh I’m in love with the janitor’s boy,
He’s busy as he can be;
And down in the cellar he’s making a raft
Out of an old settee.

He’ll carry me off, I know that he will,
For his hair is exceedingly red;
And the only thing that occurs to me
Is to dutifully shiver in bed..

Merchant sings it with a breathy alto that’s, well, very attractive to me. And it all rides on top of instrumentation courtesy of none other than Wynton Marsalis and his quintet. Just a gem.

The words intrigued me so I followed up (thank you, internet) and was astonished. Merchant has set a poem to music, a poem written by a woman named Nathalia Crane in 1924 at the age of ten. The Janitor’s Boy and Other Poems made her a child star, and she continued to write and experience fame for a number of years, until she slipped gently into relative obscurity (and a professorship at San Diego State University). Frustratingly, this must be one of the few books that simply are not available on the internet, copyright or not; the Toronto Public Library doesn’t have a copy; and neither do the libraries at York University or the University of Toronto. So I can’t give you my sense, at least, of the quality of her poetry, other than from the lyrics of Merchant’s song, which display a precocious intelligence and a playfulness that augur well.

Fortunately, not everything I’ve talked about here is hard to find on the internet. Natalie Merchant happens to have one of the best websites I’ve ever come across for a musician. It’s beautifully organized and seems as though it offers up a generous sample of all of her songs, and puts the lyrics online, along with relevant videos and stills. So read the poem by Miss Crane, listen to The Janitor’s Boy, watch her perform the full song (with different backing), and then go on to explore the rest of this albumn, which sets strange poetry for children (think Edward Lear) to music.

Maybe, like me, you’ll fall in love with Natalie and Nathalia.