She left The 10,000 Maniacs thirty years ago, but nearly every song from The Maniacs’ “MTV Unplugged” is still on my playlist thirty years later. It was an enchanting performance, and it still is. Since he lived for a short time in San Luis, I’m especially fond of this song.
But in her green years with the Maniacs, she made this video, which I just discovered. The Chrysler building is my favorite building in the world outside of the Florence Cathedral, and when we saw our niece Emmy graduate from NYU, we stayed at a hotel where, once you opened the curtains, there it was. It was glorious. Yeah, this an old-timey video, but both Merchant and, in my opinion, the Chrysler Building, and its gargoyles, are glorious, too.
But another reason I like her is that she comes down to earth to be among us. Her songs are almost documentarian, and here she is, at street level. Walt Whitman would have liked this video.
Merchant is now sixty, maybe gong on sixty-one. She still dances like Natalie. She still sings like Natalie. Don’t let her appearance bother you. She’s still young.
A Work in Progress 