Dear Ms. Merchant,
I may be one of the 10,000 maniacs who write you every day, but I need to share something.
Recently, while rummaging through a drawer of stuff from people who’ve hurt me, I stumbled upon your CD “Motherland.” You didn’t give me the CD; I bought it myself, but the sentiment remains. Fourteen years ago I saw you perform in Atlanta on your “Leave Your Sleep” Tour. Truth is, my sleep did leave me, in a manner of speaking, about the issue which will follow below.
I went to that concert to be wooed by your voice and, hopefully, to have some of my emotions tugged at. I climbed my way to the nosebleeds and settled into my plush velvet seat, palpitating with excitement to hear you! I wanted to feel those feelings I felt in high school that you made me feel. A little melancholy, a little bit in love. But no, the only feeling that you made me feel was anger.
High up in the Atlanta Opera House, where later they filmed part of “The Walking Dead,” I was plum mad at you. Did you know that they pretended it was the CDC? We locals knew it was the Cobb Energy Center, aka the Opera House. The real CDC is across town in unincorporated Dekalb County. Anyway, if you saw the show, I wonder if you even realized you had performed there. If you watched “The Walking Dead” at all! You don’t seem like the type who would like a show set in or about Atlanta.
Why would I say that? Let me tell you. In your greeting to the audience before the performance began, you complained about the amount of concrete in Atlanta. I practically fell out of my seat, all the wrong emotions spilling onto the floor.
I assume you flew into Atlanta. If so, what were you expecting when you landed at Hartsfield, the world’s busiest airport, a Guyanese-style grass landing strip? Were you expecting Jim Jones to fly you in a puddle-jumper into the middle of the jungle? I just saw a documentary about that guy and believe me, that’s not what you would have wanted! And I, for one, appreciate all those concrete runways and Interstates. How else do you think we get around? And drive to concerts like yours? All that concrete gets me to Jacksonville and Johannesburg in one fell swoop, direct.
If you’d said something like, “Atlanta traffic, amirite,” I would have felt like you were one of us, joining in a bond that unites all those who live and drive through the city too busy to hate. But the amount of concrete? That smarts. Our driveways, streets, parking lots at our favorite stores, the revolutionary John Portman atrium-style hotels downtown that were considered architectural marvels in their heydays and are still pretty cool. One has a rotating restaurant! Guess what? All concrete.
I’ll add as further support of my beef with you that Cannon Chapel at Emory University, the Brutalist masterpiece designed by the internationally fêted architect Paul Rudolph, didn’t seem to prevent college students Emily Saliers and Amy Ray from getting closer to fine. And while I’m not trying to make this a North vs. South issue — we’re still sensitive to the destruction of our antebellum beauty committed at the hands of Sherman the Steamroller. Furthermore, we Southerners were taught to hold our tongues when we don’t have anything nice to say. Or at least save it for behind their backs and not say those things in front of an audience of roughly 2,750 fans! We refer to such manners as good home training.
For fourteen years I have wallowed in this unpleasantness. And, I keep wondering what it is about our amount of concrete that offended you so, and in turn, your offense that has caused my suffering.
But in finding that CD, I may have found the answer: there you are on the cover, sitting in a lovely mown field, in the dappled light of sunset. You have that same intense look on your face that you always do — like a pretty but stern teacher who always proves so difficult to please despite her allure. You’re pretty, and your music is pretty (if not a tad on the twangy and/or whiny side depending on the mood of the listener). Your marketing people make it look like you have never laid an appendage of any kind of hard surface.
Including concrete.
I suppose I get it. Thanks to Wikipedia I now know that you are from upstate New York. That sounds downright bucolic and agrarian to me!
But allow me to dig my heels in a little further by saying that not all of us have the good fortune to have been born in a field. How would you like it if I visited you up there — a place you presumably love given that album cover in the fields as mentioned above — and complained about the number of cows you either have or don’t have, depending on your preference for the number of cows that is just right? Would you lie awake for 14 years?
I’m enjoying picturing your reaction to my defense of Béton brut. I probably am one of those maniacs. But think of it this way. I’ve harbored a grudge for longer than I’ve known your music. I’m putting that to rest by being my own songwriter of sorts. I’m telling my grudge, in a dramatic strophe stolen directly from your music,“Farewell today. Travel onward, be on your way.”
Before I also tell you to be on your way from my life forever, and before I mail my copy of “Motherland” to an orphanage I know of that still has a CD player, I know they call Atlanta the city too busy to hate, but right now, I’m not exactly fawning over you at this point.
But if you write me back, I’ll propose a truce. I’ll tell the orphanage I made an administrative mistake and ask for my copy of “Motherland” back and then scramble through that drawer of items from people who’ve hurt me and send them some other CD or trinket.
In exchange for all that effort and kindness on my part, will you simply please just say I’m sorry? In doing so, I’ll trade in my bilious anger and resentment for that old-timey melancholy and love that you used to make me feel through your beautiful if not twangy and/or abrasive voice.
Failing that, let’s go back to when you didn’t even know who I was.
Sincerely,
A Former(?) Fan
P.S. I showed this letter to a friend of mine who happens to live in your neck of the woods. She confirmed that there is indeed very little concrete in your town. How nice for you. Bless your little heart.
An Open Letter to Natalie Merchant