Natalie Merchant
Chanteuse

Américaine

Natalie Merchant's "Sister Tilly," from her album 'Keep Your Courage,' out now on Nonesuch Records: https://nataliemerchant.lnk.to/KeepYourCourage

Director & Producer: Matthew Shattuck
Line Producer: Troy Cribbin
Director of Photography & Editor: Andrew Pulaski
1st AC: Dante Corrocher
2nd AC: John Jenne
Gaffer: Piotr Ski Jagninski
BB Electric: Stephen Siddell
Electric: Chris Jara
Key Grip: Brandon Roberts
BB Grip: Lionel Maunz
Grip: Brandon Jones
Production Designer: Michael Conti
Props: Brian Stremick
Stylist: Laura Ferrara
Stylist Assist: Coco Hill
Makeup: Suzy Gerstein
Hair: Dennis Devoy
Still Photography: Andres Kudacki
Sound Mixer: Tom Fama
Production Assistants: Mark Califra and Dash Porter

Produced by Machine Street Projects

Footage Research and Additional Editing: Robert Edridge-Waks

Archival footage provided by Kinolibrary, University College London Film & TV Society, Periscope Film, and Producers Library

SISTER TILLY
(words & music by Natalie Merchant)

Oh, Miss Tilly, I think you should know everyone’s missing you here —
with your hair a mess in your outdated dress,
when Halston was all the rage back in your Chelsea Girl days.

Oh, Miss Tilly, I think you should know everyone’s missing you here —
your bright yellow walls and your pashmina shawls,
crystals, chimes and your moonflower vines,
tinctures, teas and your secret remedies,
and your voice like Buffy Sainte Marie.
I just can’t believe that you’re gone,
that you’ve gone so far away.

Oh, Miss Tilly, I think you should know everyone’s missing you here —
fortune telling cards, prayer flags in the yard,
Rilke poems and your stacks of Mother Jones,
your feminist raves in your Didion shades,
and your Zeppelin so loud and so proud.

Here’s to your days at the barricades.
Here’s to the girls in the fray.
Oh, how we wish you could stay.
But you’re gone; you’ve gone so far away.

Sister Tilly, you go on 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.

Sister 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.
Tears fall down like rain.

No fear and no delusion,
no 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.

#nataliemerchant #keepyourcourage #sistertilly