Music Review: 10,000 Maniacs "Eat For Two"

10,000 Maniacs

Eat For Two

Album: Blind Man’s Zoo

Year: 1989

              Halfway through her pregnancy, Natalie Merchant questions if she should be a mother in the subversive “Eat For Two.”

                 A blessed guitar opens the single, setting a forced tone. She folds the onesies she received at her baby shower in the drawer. She feels the baby kick her and she touches her stomach. Somehow, it doesn’t seem real. She wonders who the child will be. Will their child be quiet like her? Will their child grow up to have lots of friends? She doesn’t know what to expect and it scares her. After her miscarriage, she wasn’t sure if she wanted children. The loss took her down, rendered her immobile for months. (“O, baby blankets and baby shoes/Baby slippers, baby spoons, walls of baby blue/Dream child in my head/Is a nightmare born in a borrowed bed/Now I know lightning strikes again/It struck me once, then struck me dead/My folly grows inside of me.”)

             In the chorus, at all her doctor’s appointments she’s been told she’s out of the woods. Everything’s fine. Still, she worries. (“I eat for two/Walk for two/Breathe for two now/I eat for two/Walk for two/Breathe for two now.”)

                She shouldn’t have agreed to have children. She isn’t sure what she feels anymore. She’s anxious all the time. How’s she going to survive taking care of someone else? She’s can hardly handle herself right now. (“Well, the egg man fell down off his shelf/All the good king's men with all their help/Struggled 'til the end/For a shell they couldn't mend/You know where this will lead/To hush and rock in the nursery/For the kicking one inside of me.”)

              The chorus is sung again.

              She and her husband had a wonderful relationship. He was her best friend, the person she trusted the most. Then, once they got married, he asked for a child. She said she wasn’t sure. She didn’t know if she was ready. Despite her doubts, she got pregnant. She should’ve stood her ground. (“When the boy was a boy, the girl was a girl/They found each other in a wicked world/Strong in some respects/But she couldn't stand for the way he begged and gave in/Pride is for men/Young girls should run and hide instead/Risk the game by taking dares with, "yes.”)

             The chorus is sung again.

            In the final section, she wants the pregancy to be done. Her fears are overwhelming her. There’s no turning back now. (“Walk for two/I'm stumbling
Breathe for two/I can't breathe/Five months, how it grows/Five months now, I begin to show.”)

                 Merchant isn’t feeling the maternal instincts she’s been told will happen. She feels as though she’s going to be terrible mother. The child will say “I hate you” all the time to her. She can’t do it. She can’t.  She was meant to be childless. The single goes against societal norms, rebelling in a major way.

             The daring  “Eat For Two” as uncomfortable as it might be, does bring up the subject that motherhood isn’t for every woman.