A New Tune

Never did music seem more important to Merchant than when she sang at the funeral of a man who died in the World Trade Center. His widow asked Merchant to sing a song by her late husband's favorite artist, John Hiatt; the wife asked to hear his song "Have a Little Faith in Me." It was not easy: Even now, recounting the moment, Merchant's voice catches when she recites the lines, "When your back's against the wall/I will catch you when you fall."

"Never in my life has my role as a musician been more obvious," Merchant says. "I was there to give people pause and to facilitate, to help them feel what they were feeling and to give them a place to feel it...The widow I sang for said that for her family, eating and music were the only things that make sense to her right now, and it's what's brought her some of the greatest comfort. That's coming from someone who's already lost a loved one in the war."