Merril Bainbridge (born 2 June 1968) is an Australian pop music singer and songwriter. Her debut was in 1994 with the single, "Mouth", which peaked at number one for six consecutive weeks in Australia and became a top five hit in the United States. Early career Merril Bainbridge started performing at age 9. Her first performance was at a carnival that her sisters persuaded her to enter because the prize was free carnival tickets. She came third and won twenty dollars' worth of tickets. After six years of performing in a variety of bands in Australia, and doing backup vocal work in exchange for studio time, Bainbridge began a solo career under the tutelage of producer Siew. Bainbridge stated that she and Siew "really connected well, from a creative point. I liked the way he worked and I knew I had so much more to learn in that environment [and] that's how it started. That was the point where I started feeling a lot more confident as a singer and then wanting to dive more into the songwriting side." She also worked a day job before quitting to concentrate solely on music. In 1991, she and Siew wrote the track "Could This Be Love" for the Techno-Color single "Unchained Melody". Music career The Garden: 1994–1997 In 1994, Bainbridge was signed to Ross Fraser and John Farnham's newly formed Gotham Records label. Fraser first heard Bainbridge when he received a tape in the mail and was interested by the combination of voice and guitar. "Mouth" was Bainbridge's debut release and the first song released from her debut album The Garden by Gotham Records. "Mouth" was released in Australia in October 1994 but was lost in the Christmas shuffle. It was reissued in February 1995 where it came to be the biggest song of Bainbridge's career, peaking at number one in Australia for six consecutive weeks before becoming the fourth highest selling single in Australia for 1995. The second song released from The Garden was "Under the Water" which is a song about a lover who drowned, released in Australia in June 1995. The song did not match the success of "Mouth" but was still a top five hit, peaking at number four in Australia and accrediting platinum by ARIA. The Garden was released in Australia on 31 July 1995, where it debuted at its peak position at number five on the