A year or so I was riffling through the CD racks at the Public Library - I usually limit myself to classical music CDs these day - when my fell upon an CD cover with the photo of an atypically beautiful woman, i.e., no manufactured beauty a la JLo or Britney Spears, on a stool singing in one of those MTV Unplugged sessions. So I checked the CD out, and for a few nights gave my ears to the highly enigmantic voice of Ms. Merchant.

Since I am rooting around YouTube (it is addictive!) after a difficult morning, I present to you another bauble: Merchant's cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Because The Night". Watch out for the orchestra!

On my arrival to these United States, I went bresek, and tried to gorge myself on as much of 'cultural' goods like books, movies, music, art etc, whose access was either limited, or which were too expensive for me to enjoy.

One of the first steps I took was to take out a Blockbuster (a movie rental chain) card, and watch a couple of 'weird' (such was the label give to my picks by my then roommates) movies. "Singles" was one of these earliest movies, and one which I enjoyed immensely, not only because it has a Seth's 'The Golden Gate' like kind of story with lot of talk set in Seattle but also because it has a fantastic soundtrack; a soundtrack that proved to a bridge for me to get acquainted with 'grunge' bands such as the well know and often played Nirvana, Peral Jam etc.

However this soundtrack also featured tracks from extinct bands such as Mother Love Bone. And holy mother of god, what a song that was; actually two songs played as one, entitled, "Chloe Dancer / Crown Of Thorns". So kind readers, please follow the YouTube link below, and get some Mother Love live:

And here are the lyrics. Dig it!