Natalie Merchant - Cover Songs, Volume 2: 1998-2007

Here's another volume of Natalie Merchant performing cover albums that didn't appear on her studio albums.

By this point in her solo career, pretty much all of the songs on her studio albums were entirely written by her. But she still performed lots of cover songs in concert and elsewhere. And she continued to have some very unusual choices.

This time, all but two of the songs are officially released. The two unreleased ones are "Last Goodbye" and "Nowhere Man." Both are from concert bootlegs.

The released songs are the usual mix of songs from other artists' albums, various artists compilations, and the like. Two songs, "Birds and Ships" and "I Was Born" are from the "Mermaid Avenue" albums, where newer artists added music to go with lyrics written way back when by Woody Guthrie. Three songs, "Space Oddity," "After the Gold Rush," and "The Gulf of Araby," are from Merchant's only official live album, simply titled "Live in Concert." For live tracks like these, I used the MVSEP audio editing program to get rid of the crowd noise.

Also, I think Merchant had a hand in writing the song "Because I Could Not Stop for Death." The lyrics were originally written by the famous 1800s poet Emily Dickinson. But I believe the music was composed by Merchant and Susan McKeown, and then put on an album by McKeown.

Merchant has done many, many interesting covers in concert that I couldn't find any good recordings of, because she didn't perform them many times. Examples include "All Right Now" by Free, "Everyday People" by Sly and the Family Stone, and "Dust in the Wind" by Kansas. I found one such surprise choice, "Wonderwall" by Oasis, but the recording was so poor that I could only include it as a bonus track.

This album is 50 minutes long, not including the bonus track.

Here's a list of the original artists for each song:

01 Birds and Ships - Woody Guthrie / Billy Bragg & Wilco
02 But Not for Me - Ira Gershwin & George Gershwin
03 In the Ghetto - Elvis Presley
04 The Lowlands of Holland - traditional
05 Space Oddity - David Bowie
06 After the Gold Rush - Neil Young
07 The Gulf of Araby - Katell Keineg
08 Last Goodbye - Jeff Buckley
09 I Was Born - Woody Guthrie / Billy Bragg & Wilco
10 Nowhere Man - Beatles
11 Because I Could Not Stop for Death - Emily Dickinson, Susan McKeown & Natalie Merchant
12 Loch Lomond  - traditional
13 Misguided Angel  - Cowboy Junkies
Wonderwall - Oasis

And here's the usual song list:

01 Birds and Ships (Natalie Merchant)
02 But Not for Me (Natalie Merchant)
03 In the Ghetto (Natalie Merchant with Tracy Chapman)
04 The Lowlands of Holland (Chieftains with Natalie Merchant)
05 Space Oddity (Natalie Merchant)
06 After the Gold Rush (Natalie Merchant)
07 The Gulf of Araby (Natalie Merchant)
08 Last Goodbye (Natalie Merchant)
09 I Was Born (Billy Bragg & Natalie Merchant)
10 Nowhere Man (Natalie Merchant)
11 Because I Could Not Stop for Death (Susan McKeown & Natalie Merchant)
12 Loch Lomond (Dan Zanes with Natalie Merchant)
13 Misguided Angel (Cowboy Junkies with Natalie Merchant)

Wonderwall (Natalie Merchant)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16391902/NATLIMERCHNT1998-2007CvrSngsVlum2_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from a concert at the Cynthia Mitchell Woodlands Pavilion in Woodlands, Texas, on July 5, 2002.