Natalie Merchant (1963) was tussen 1981 en 1993 de zangeres van 10,000 Maniacs. Vanaf 1994 ging ze solo en nam ze het album Tigerlily op. Deze wals staat op het gelijknamig album Motherland uit 2001.

Where in the hell can you go
Far from the things that you know
Far from the sprawl of concrete that keeps crawling its way 
about 1, 000 miles a day?
Take one last look behind,
Commit this to memory and mind.
Don't miss this wasteland,
This terrible place
When you leave
Keep your heart off your sleeve

Motherland cradle me, close my eyes,
Lullaby me to sleep
Keep me safe, lie with me,
Stay beside me don't go
Don't you go
Oh, my five and dime queen
Tell me what have you seen?
The lust and the avarice,
The bottomless, the cavernous greed,
Is that what you see?

Motherland cradle me, close my eyes,
Lullaby me to sleep.
Keep me safe, lie with me,
Stay beside me don't go

It's your happiness I want most of all
And for that I'd do anything at all,
Oh mercy me!
If you want the best of it
Or the most of all, if there's anything
I can do at all

Now come on shot gun bride
What makes me envy your life?
Faceless, nameless, innocent,
Blameless and free,
What's that like to be?

Motherland cradle me, close my eyes,
Lullaby me to sleep.
Keep me safe, lie with me,
Stay beside me don't go

Don't go