Song Lyric Sunday prompts for this week are Amaze, Astonish, Curious, Shock, Surprise and Wonder suggested by Melanie B Cee, aka Sparky of Sparks From A Combustible Mind.
I have picked the Natalie Merchant song, “Wonder” that I have always liked. Hope you like it too!
The Song
When she was a teenager, Natalie Merchant worked at a day camp for special needs children, many of whom had been institutionalized since infancy and abandoned by their parents. This song was inspired by that experience.
She explained on a VH1 Storytellers appearance: “When I was 13 years old, we’re talking 1976, I spent my summer working as a volunteer for a bunch of hippies, basically, that got a seed grant from the Carter administration, which had a lot of really wonderful programs for the arts. These people started a day camp for handicapped children, and I worked for them the whole summer. A lot of these children were institutionalized – their parents had left the scene a long time ago. They didn’t function so well in a conventional sense, but it seems that a lot of the children had developed like a private language or new senses so they could navigate through the world, especially the blind and the deaf children that we worked with.
From an early age, I had that contact with children who had special needs. I had lost my fear of intimacy with them – especially with Down syndrome kids, they could be really unpredictable and up to that point I had been a little frightened of them. I maintained some of the friendships with those kids and I was always open to meeting children with special needs. So when I wrote the song ‘Wonder,’ I wrote the song about a woman who was born with handicaps that seemed insurmountable, but she did overcome them, greatly because she had a loving family, especially her adoptive mother – she had been given up to an institution at birth.”
This is a very meaningful song to many people who grew up with special needs and their caretakers. The song views these people as “wonders,” with doctors having no explanation for their condition, but seeing the work of God in the creation.
“I’ve met a lot of people through this song, and they’ve told me that they’ve taken it on as their song, that it describes them,” Merchant said. “It describes their strengths in spite of what others would see as deficiencies.”
Natalie Merchant performed this song, along with “Carnival,” on an episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by David Schwimmer in 1995.
The Lyrics
Doctors have come from distant cities, just to see me Stand over my bed, disbelieving what they're seeing They say I must be one of the wonders Of God's own creation And as far as they see, they can offer No explanation Newspapers ask intimate questions, want confessions They reach into my head to steal, the glory of my story They say I must be one of the wonders Of God's own creation And as far as they see, they can offer No explanation Ooo, I believe, fate smiled And destiny laughed as you came to my cradle Know this child will be able Laughed as my body she lifted Know this child will be gifted With love, with patience, and with faith She'll make her way, she'll make her way People see me I'm a challenge to your balance I'm over your heads how I confound you And astound you To know I must be one of the wonders God's own creation And as far as they see, they can offer Me no explanation Ooo, I believe, fate smiled And destiny laughed as she came to my cradle Know this child will be able Laughed as she came to my mother Know this child will not suffer Laughed as my body she lifted Know this child will be gifted With love, with patience and with faith She'll make her way, she'll make her way She'll make her way, she'll make her way Writer/s: NATALIE A MERCHANT Publisher: Downtown Music Publishing Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind
Had never heard this song. Very inspirational.
Thank you! Yes I thought so too ☺️
I think it is wonderful that the world is finally making some advances understanding special needs children. This was really bad the way they were treated a long time agio, as I saw people teasing them when I was in High School, which I never liked, but I didn’t have the courage to stand up against them being bullied. I worked as a substitute teacher and had the special needs kids some times and I always found them to be very nice. Thanks for sharing this song today Christine.
Thanks Jim. I grew up with a neighbor who had Downs Syndrome. We were around seven and eight years old and she was like 35 and she used to play with us. She was just like us really only bigger. It was a lot of fun. In fact much later in life I was on a committee for Special Olympics here locally in Florida for many years. The club I worked at used to hold a golf tournament fundraiser every year. What goes around comes around I guess.