Leave Your Sleep, Natalie Merchant's first studio album since 2003's The House Carpenter's Daughter is the culmination of seven years' research and collaboration and is, in Merchant's words, "the most elaborate project I have ever completed or even imagined." A two-disc set, Leave Your Sleep is a collection of songs adapted from poems selected by Merchant including pieces by both well-known and obscure writers. Featured are works by British Victorians, early- and mid-20th century Americans and contemporary writers as well as anonymous nursery rhymes and lullabies. Among the authors included are Ogden Nash, E.E. Cummings, Robert Louis Stevenson, Christina Rossetti, Edward Lear, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Robert Graves.In addition to a new method of lyricism, Merchant stretches out musically on Leave Your Sleep by collaborating with a broad spectrum of artists-some old friends, some she has admired from afar-including the Wynton Marsalis Quartet, Medeski Martin & Wood, members of the New York Philharmonic, The Klezmatics, Lunasa and Hazmat Modine. "The sessions were recorded in live ensemble settings to capture a fresh and spontaneous energy," notes Merchant. "They were some of the most magical experiences I've ever had making music." Contains a 80 page booklet.

Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience
2. Equestrienne
3. Calico Pie
4. Bleezer's Ice Cream
5. It Makes a Change
6. The King of China's Daughter
7. The Dancing Bear
8. The Man in the Wilderness
9. maggie and milly and molly and may
10. If No One Ever Marries Me
11. The Sleepy Giant
12. The Peppery Man
13. The Blind Men and the Elephant

Disc 2:

1. Adventures of Isabel
2. The Walloping Window Blind
3. Topsyturvey-World
4. The Janitor's Boy
5. Griselda
6. The Land of Nod
7. Vain and Careless
8. Crying, My Little One
9. Sweet and a Lullaby
10. I Saw a Ship A-Sailing
11. Autumn Lullaby
12. Spring and Fall: to a young child
13. Indian Names