"Mercy Street" is a song written by Peter Gabriel from his 1986 album So. The song deals with the life and conflicting emotions of the poet Anne Sexton, and makes frequent allusions to incidents from Sexton's life and a number of her poems, in particular the work 45 Mercy Street. Themes touched on in the song include suicide attempts, troubled parental relationships, a desire to become whole, attempting to come to terms with the past, and confessing.The song is an example of Gabriel's interest in mixing synthesized music with world music elements. The song is very gentle, rhythmic and percussive in style. It starts with synthesized chords (the song features the Fairlight CMI, Prophet synthesizer and the Yamaha CS-80) before the percussion comes in. The percussion parts are an example of Gabriel's interest in world music and were recorded for the song in Brazil in advance by musician Djalma Correa, who was playing surdo, congas and triangle. They are slowed down in the final recording. The song also features two Gabriel vocals, one of which is a shadow vocal which is an octave below the main vocal, intended to give a more haunting vocal effect.