Soulful versions of (They long to be) close to you

Issac Hayes - 1971


B.T.Express - 1974


Gwen Guthrie - 1986


Tamia featuring Gerald Levert - 2004

Natalie Merchant

Because The Night - 10,000 Maniacs

That takes me back in 1993 when I got a job with a company. There was always sounded a radio, and this song was played frequently. I like Natalie's voice and tone.



Next tune used to be aired in 1998 on J-WAVE.
Kind And Generous from the album Ophelia


Here is a great version of the song with The Perkins Secondary School Chorus, live at the Perkins School for the Blind Possibilities Gala on May 7, 2009.


with The Perkins Trio, accompanied by Livingston Taylor on guitar and Brian Maes on piano.
Motherland

How beautiful song! And how beautiful voice the boy has!

Motherland

MOTHERLAND

Natalie Merchant / Indian Love Bride © 2001

Where in 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

O, my five & 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, o 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 you go