Natalie Merchant on being thankful to our mothers’ generation

“I wanted to create a woman who would be representative of my mother’s generation, because these women are leaving us, and I feel a great debt of gratitude to them. Not only was I raised by a woman of that generation, but I have so many surrogate mothers of that generation, too. And I think as a society we owe so much to them — they really moved us forward in so many ways.”
— Natalie Merchant

The singer and songwriter Natalie Merchant is talking here about Sister Tilly, a beautiful song that appears on her 2023 album Keep Your Courage. [Click here to read the full interview with Paste.]

Merchant, now 62, is speaking for my own generation here, too. I feel the same way about my mother — who is now 93 — and her diminishing circle of friends and peers.

Here’s the song.

I’ve been building a playlist in Spotify of songs mentioned here on the blog.