Songfacts®:

• This piano ballad was written by 10,000 Maniacs lead singer Natalie Merchant. "Verdi" is the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), who wrote several famous operas, including "Aida" and "La traviata."
  
  On her VH1 Storytellers special, Merchant told the story: "When I was a tender ingénue, when I was 20 years old, I was taken to Spain for the first time, to the wild frontier, and I had a very romantic holiday in the Balearic Islands, the island of Mallorca. And we stayed in a little hotel perched on this massive rock overlooking the Mediterranean. I repeat, very romantic.
  
  There were a lot of different Europeans there, mostly Germans, Dutch, French, English, and it was very E.M. Forster, you know, the communal dining area on the terrace and the communal bathroom, one per floor, and the walls were very thin.
  
  There was one older German gentleman who seemed a bit obsessed with one opera, which he listened to over and over. Every morning he would listen to this opera. And, I don't know about you, but certain songs can be very evocative of periods in my life and that first trip to Spain is always associated in my mind with Verdi's opera 'Aida' and the song that I wrote after called 'Verdi Cries.'"
  
  Merchant never did see the man in Room 119 who played the opera over and over.
• This is a rare 10,000 Maniacs songs that uses a string section - David Campbell, whose clients include Adele, Aerosmith and Beck, did the arrangement.
  
  The biggest hit for the group ended up being their cover of "Because The Night" from their appearance on MTV Unplugged, where they performed with strings.