I love Natalie Merchant. I especially love the name of the album this is off of (Motherland; from her, it doesn’t sound nationalistic but goddess-centric). This song especially speaks to me for some reason. I imagine each verse sung by an earlier generation of women, each who fell victim to what she warns against; each child at her knee the child of Him Who she warns against.

[He'll] take you where the waters rise so high and run so deep.

Love love love that description of sex.

But if, by chance, you should meet:
Beware of His cold, dark eyes,
Full of bold and unholy deceit.
He’ll tempt you with a whirling pool of lies
And promises He’ll deny that He will never keep.

If that’s not the voice of experience, I don’t know what is.

(Another version; listen to part of the official version at her website; also, this is one of the greatest songs ever written.)