Natalie Merchant - Sister Tilly

Introduction to Song Exploder

0:00You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishikesh Hirwe.

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Writing Sister Tilly

1:54When I heard the news about Dolly Parton's death a few weeks ago, and then a few days after that heard about Gloria Steinem's death, I thought about this song that Natalie Merchant wrote called Sister Tilly. It's about losing a generation of activist women who did so much in their lifetimes. So I wanted to go back and revisit that song and Natalie Merchant's beautiful story about what the song means to her. Also, in the show notes, I'm including links to donate to Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, which mails free books to children, and to the Women's Media Center, a non-profit that Gloria Steinem co-founded.

2:28Okay, here's the Natalie Merchant episode, which originally came out in June 2023.

2:37Natalie Merchant is an award-winning singer and songwriter from upstate New York. She was the lead singer of the band 10,000 Maniacs until she left in 1993. And then, as a solo artist, she's put out nine albums over the last 30 years. Between 10,000 Maniacs and her solo work, she's had multiple multi-platinum records. In April 2023, Natalie put out her first album of new songs in nine years. It's called Keep Your Courage. And for this episode, she talked to me about the song Sister Tilly. It's a eulogy for a fictional character, a woman who represents the generation of women who influenced her,

3:12women who were activists in the 1960s and 70s when she was growing up. Oh, Miss Tilly, I think you should know Everyone's missing you here Your fortune-telling cards Prayer flags in the eye Your Rilka poems and your stacks of Mother Jones Your feminist raves in your titian shades

3:46And your zeppelin So loud

Funerals and pandemic losses

3:50My name's Natalie Merchant.

3:55About three years before I wrote Sister Tilly, I went to a funeral for a beloved librarian in my small town. The memorial was so large that we had to have it in a school auditorium. Her husband came up to me before the memorial because I was running the sound. And he said, when I give you the signal, play this song as loud as you can. And he gave me the signal, and it was Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks. It was her favorite song. And the entire group of people in the room started weeping and laughing,

4:30and everyone stood up, and I was one of the people laughing and crying at the same time. Millions of people, swallowing like fly sound, Waterloo Underground.

4:45Fast forward three years in the middle of the pandemic lockdown, I had a couple other friends of that same generation pass away, and we weren't able to have any memorials. One was Sally Grossman, who was a local legend in upstate New York. So between those two experiences of being at a memorial with a full room of people, all celebrating this woman of that generation, and then poor Sally passing away, and no one could gather for her. I had them in mind, and how I wanted to celebrate the lives of these women

5:18and so many others of my mother's generation. I was just sitting at my piano. I wasn't really writing with the aim of making an album. I hadn't done that in almost ten years. And I came up with the chord progression that made Sister Tilly appear. Oh, Miss Tilly, I think you should know Everyone's missing you here

5:51I just said, oh, Miss Tilly. She just came out of my mouth, and that doesn't happen very often. Sometimes it's a blessing when you get a little message that says, this is what your song is about. And sometimes it's a curse, because then I was like, okay, I've created Sister Tilly, but I don't know who she is, where she lives. I just had to flesh her out. I really wanted to turn Sister Tilly into a composite character, an amalgam of many different women,

6:23because I'm not really just eulogizing her. I'm eulogizing the generation of women. And so I thought that it'd be better to take characteristics from several different women I knew. The women that influenced me at a young age introduced me to yoga, definitely all the books that I've read, films that I saw. The influences, they're just the air that we breathe.

6:53Crystals, chimes, and your moonflower vines Tinctures, teas, and your secret remedies Once I determined that she was a woman who was in her prime in the mid to late 60s, early 70s, I decided I would make some references to some of the music that was popular at the time. And so the cadence is very much influenced by Dylan. Your tinctures, your teas, your secret remedies

7:26And their voice, like puffy St. Marie. And all the Sister Tillys are into tinctures, teas, and secret remedies. Just put this clove of garlic in your lower lip, Natalie, and you'll be great. My mother was not a Sister Tilly. My mother was a teenage bride who had four children by the time she was 23. She and my father were separated when I was eight, divorced when I was nine.

7:58And she went to work at the art department of the local college. And it was there that she found a group of people who inspired her to think more broadly. And there was a Swedish woman who came to teach for a year. She taught ceramics. She had really long braided hair and wore ponchos and Birkenstocks and didn't shave. And she would help me make pottery on the wheel. And I think she was my first Sister Tilly. I thought it was amazing that you could

8:29earn a living through your creativity. And I couldn't imagine a more successful outcome for life than to be an artist. With your hair in a mess In your outdated dress When Houston was all the rage Back in your Chelsea girl days

Arranging and recording strings

8:56We recorded up in a rural residential studio in Brattleboro, Vermont. I decided I would work with an arranger named Gabriel Kahane. I met Gabriel years ago when he was workshopping his musical. So I asked him

9:27if he would be interested in colouring my narrative.

9:32We started with a core band of drums bass piano guitar And that was Tilly's skeleton And then the strings And it was still the fifth wave of COVID

10:02So we decided that we would keep it to five people in the studio at a time which meant that these huge arrangements had to be layered. And Gabriel wrote this string part that sounds like it could be a Jimmy Page guitar solo. Your feminist raves In your tidying shades And your zeppelin So loud So proud I give a passing reference

10:56to Joan Didion's sunglasses And the week I did the vocal she passed away And that's why I dedicated the album to her To Joan Didion and all her sisters And it just shows you just not a moment too soon That's what I feel about this song Every day we're losing more of these women And there's so many aspects of our lives that we take for granted The fact that

11:27I was able to have my daughter in a state-of-the-art birthing center My mother had a fully she was fully anesthetized when she had all four of her children and was handed some formula as she walked out the door and it would have been considered quote perverse if she had suggested maybe I'd like to breastfeed when I was born in 1963 but by 1979 completely acceptable to have an unmedicated birth but those are things that the women

11:57of my mother's generation fought for Here's to your days at the barricades Here's to the girls in the fray Alex Sopp came in with alto flute and she put on five tracks at least and then came

12:28the oboe and then came the brass section It's unusual in pop music to hear a lot of oboe and alto flute and flugelhorn these days but it makes it

12:58a richer texture richer fabric I always make sure even if it's just someone coming in to do a single instrument overdub everyone had to understand what the song was about and so the cello line in but you're gone is just an octave but but you're gone I remember

13:30just telling Eleanor the cellist this is the moment when people realize that she's passed away and she started crying her mother's a sister Tilly but you're gone you've gone so far away but you're gone more with Natalie Merchant

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Layering vocals and mystical endings

17:12different movements to the song and I thought it would be great to describe her life with the more dreamy ethereal approach this 3-4 feel and then when she's making her departure she's got places to go I did the vocals for almost a full week sister tilly you're a

17:43constellation sister tilly you're a white light vibration now we tried doing it as a gang vocal and it was a great amount of fun to have everyone standing around one microphone but it sounded god awful it just sounded awful so I decided that I would go in and sing all those vocals myself tears fall down like rain there's nothing but the big

18:13forever there's nothing but a sweet surrender now and then at the very end it gets kind of mystical when I am ushering her off into the great beyond go on without us don't think about us now that's another aspect of 60s music that kind of eastern influence

18:44and a kind of Ravi Shankar sitar kind of feel and you know sister tilly spent some time in an ashram of course so I had to make some kind of reference to that and who's playing that droning thanpura sound the bass player had it's actually a tone generator that he uses to tune and I said that is great we have to have that I'm

19:18becoming a bit of a sister tilly myself to be honest and there's quite a bit of me in sister tilly the rilka poems and the stacks of mother jones it's all I'm a sister tilly in training not only was I raised by women of that generation who had tilly esque characteristics I'm a child of the 60s and 70s so I can't escape the influence

19:48of counterculture because counterculture was my culture and it is a concern of mine that the work of the sister tillies of this country has not been credited to them and has not been fortified and cherished and therefore will be lost take for instance bodily autonomy for women that's a right that my mother's generation fought I can't even talk about it I

20:20can't because I see this image of thousands of women because this is my childhood too thousands of women marching in the streets of Washington the momentum of those women and the power they fought so hard and we didn't secure it and now we're losing it and I worry about my daughter's generation it's almost like sister tillie knocked on the door

20:50and I had to let her in not many songs come about like that and now I'm getting to share her people are seeing themselves in her and they're seeing their mothers and friends and I think maybe it will fill people with more urgency to appreciate them I'm being a real softie today I was just about to start crying again and now

21:20here's Sister Tilly by Natalie Merchant in its entirety

Full song playback

21:46Oh Miss Tilly I think you should know everyone's missing you here with your hair in a mess in your outdated dress when Houston was all the

22:17rage back in your Chelsea girl days Oh Miss Tilly I think you should know everyone's missing you here with your bright yellow walls and your pashmina shawls crystals jimes and your moon flower

22:47vines tinctures teas and your secret remedies and your voice like buffy saint marie jimes oh i just can't believe that you're gone you've gone so far away that you're gone you've

23:20gone so far away gone Oh, Miss Tilly, I think you should know Everyone's missing you here

23:52Your fortune-telling cards, prayer flags in the eye Your Rilke poems and your stacks of Mother Jones Your feminist raves in your tidying shades And your Zeppelin, so loud, so proud Zeppelin, so loud, so proud Zeppelin, so loud, so proud

24:34Here's to your days at the barricades Here's to the girls in the fray Oh, how I wish you could stay But you're gone You've gone so far away

25:04But you're gone You're gone You're gone so far away Gone

25:24Gone Oh, you've gone away

25:32You've gone away

25:39Oh, you've gone You've gone away Sister Tilly Sister Tilly, you've gone without us Sister Tilly, you don't think about us now Everything fades away Sister Tilly, you're a superpower Sister Tilly, you're a lotus flower Now Everything fades away

26:10Sister Tilly, you're a constellation Sister Tilly, you're a white light vibration Now Everything fades away No craving for sensation No want and no temptation Now Take care Now Tears fall down like rain No fear and no delusion

26:43No doubt and no confusion Now Tears fall down like rain There's nothing but the big forever There's nothing but a sweet surrender Now Okay What- The Yes Who They Are

27:14D Your Yes You They Gone las Man De Of May You're a constellation A white light vibration now

27:45A superpower A lotus flower No sensation, no temptation No delusion, no confusion now Go on

28:21Go on without us Don't think about us now Go on Go on without us now Oh, my God.

29:17And Mary Dolan. The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at radiotopia.fm. You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Rishi Hirwe, and you can follow the show at Song Exploder. You can also get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt.

29:47I'm Rishi Keish Hirwe. Thanks for listening.

29:53Radiotopia from PRX. There's a very cool podcast from Radiotopia called The Selects. It's sort of a curated collection of incredible audio stories that have been unearthed from web archives and radio streams and early podcasts. The host of the show is Mitra Koboli, one of my favorite people in podcasts. And in every episode, she brings you a hidden gem of an audio work that she's found. These include award-winning documentaries, oral histories, and works of sound.

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