Natalie Merchant thought she would never sing again after emergency spinal surgery: 'Place of panic'

foxnews.com:

Natalie Merchant thought she’d never sing again while she was recovering from spinal surgery three years ago. The "Life is Sweet" singer told The Guardian in a recent interview she was diagnosed with a degenerative spinal disease and had to have a six-hour surgery in 2020.

Doctors made an incision in her throat and had to move her vocal cords to the side to remove three spinal bones.  "My spinal column was collapsing into my spinal cord," the 59-year-old said. "I needed to have emergency surgery." When she came out of surgery, she couldn’t sing.  "It took me to a place of panic," the former 10,000 Maniacs frontwoman said. "It made me wish I had made more records." And while she tried to imagine what life would look like after singing, Merchant said a friend sent her a book of narrative poetry by Robin Robertson.  "I remember opening the book, reading the first chapter and writing to him immediately," the "Kind & Generous" singer said. "I then sent him a copy of my box set, he sent me some of his other books and I just fell in love with language again."  She didn’t do any songwriting in that time because she said she wanted to focus on raising her daughter, now an adult. "Lyric writing demands solitude, and when I am in that state there is no eating, no stopping.

I won't leave the house for days until it's done," she explained. "I did not want to do that to my daughter. I did not want to be one of those artists that valued my work more than my child. "Music got me through the pandemic, and what I wanted to hear was thoughtful, beautiful music, or I wanted to dance.

Once I could move around again, I just wanted to dance. My daughter and I would have dance parties all the time." During her correspondence with Robertson,.