069: The Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs (1999)

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“The only thing that holds this collection together is something extra-musical … which is love.”

—Stephin Merritt

The Magnetic Fields, during its early-’90s heyday, consisted mainly of introverted wordplay enthusiast Stephin Merritt, his collection of abused, dinky electronics, and Claudia Gonson, his drummer, cheerleader, and buffer to the outside world. Other collaborators came and went through astonishingly catchy, brainy, and weird albums like Holiday and The Charm of the Highway Strip (not to mention the creme-de-la-creme indie-rock ball of the 6ths’ Wasps’ Nests, which we covered like eight years ago). But nothing prepared the rock-geek world for 69 Love Songs: Merritt’s three-disc 1999 opus that was no longer lo-fi (unless he wanted it to be), no longer willfully obscure (unless that was the point), and no longer inaccessible (unless it was “Love Is Like Jazz,” which … ecch). Instead, it was a seemingly impossible romp through dozens of musical styles that could be hilarious, heartbreaking, mocking, sincere, or all of the above in one big clump. Will and Rich stick this whole thing out over three episodes which we’ll be releasing over three joyous nights, joined variously by John, Amanda, and recurring D&R guest hosts Libby Cudmore and B. Heard.

Miscellany

• As mentioned in the episode, LD Beghtol, vocalist on this album, tragically died during the episode's recording. In addition to contributing to such essential songs as “All My Little Words,” Beghtol wrote the Bloomsbury Books entry on 69 Love Songs for their 33 1/3 series. Half of the book is a witty glossary of assorted terms and references Stephin Merritt uses in the album's lyrics, and the other half is a series of interviews with those involved (and some not) with each of the 69 songs. It was a big help putting this episode together. By all the accounts Will has seen, he seems to have been an uncommonly upbeat, theatrical, witty talent.

• Amanda thinks Beghtol’s desire for a Victorian dog named Montmorency is a reference to Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome, which is a delightful Victorian novel featuring a dog named Montmorency.

• A lot of good information for this episode also came from the oral history Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records by John Cook, Mac McCaughan, Laura Ballance, and any number of other contributors. There’s a full chapter on the Magnetic Fields and their relationship with the label -- particularly the physical difficulties in releasing this album -- as well as chapters on other great Merge bands like Lambchop and Neutral Milk Hotel.

• The House of Tomorrow is your Internet home for Stephin Merritt, the Magnetic Fields, the 6ths, the Future Bible Heroes, and the Gothic Archies. There’s probably a Buffalo Rome song or two in there somewhere as well.

• While John certainly wouldn't highlight it as one of the album's better tracks, and while he agrees that the most natural reaction to the track is to find it insufferable and obnoxious, John thinks Merritt is doing something smarter with "Love is Like Jazz" than it initially appears (and than Will/Rich/Amanda gave it credit for). Merritt here isn't looking to create a jazz track so much as he's looking to create a parody of what people think jazz is if they don't know anything about jazz (e.g. the clip about how jazz is just everybody soloing at the same time and essentially pulling a con on the listener). For John, the song draws a parallel between love and jazz in that, to the uninitiated, both of these seem like something trivial that anybody can do, until they actually try to do it, at which point they discover (through embarrassing attempts they'd just as soon hide from the world) that it's actually really hard. John won't argue against disliking it per se (it's an intentionally unlikeable song!), but as with so many things on this album, he thinks there's an interesting idea integrated into the music and lyric that he's hesitant to dismiss outright.

• There’s a thoroughly enjoyable full-length 2010 documentary about Merritt and the band called Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields, and the official site can be found here.

• The version of “I Don’t Believe You” that closes the first volume comes from Obscurities, a great collection released under Merritt’s name that contains songs spanning his various projects.

• The wonderful “Yeah! Oh, Yeah!” was covered on Merge Records' 20th anniversary compilation Score, in which assorted artists attempted songs that Merge had initially released. There are quite a few great finds there, like Laura Cantrell's cover of Lambchop's “Cowboy on the Moon” and Discord & Rhyme favorite Barbara Manning taking on Portastatic's “Through with People.” “Yeah! Oh, Yeah!” though, was handled by self-satisfied Swedish indie fop Jens Lekman and Tracey Thorn of British electropoppy duo Everything But the Listenability, and it's almost worth giving it a whirl to hear just how embarrassing and maddening this duet can be when you replace Stephin and Claudia's humor and chemistry with straight-faced, plodding nightclub crooning. Oh, it's bad.

• This performance of “Yeah! Oh, Yeah!” in Cambridge in 2004, with Claudia and Stephin's hilarious pantomiming, reels the song back to hilarious black comedy.

Other links

• The Magnetic Fields’ Bandcamp site (themagneticfields.bandcamp.com)

• 69lovesongs.info fan wiki (Wayback Machine)

• 69 Love Songs, Illustrated (howfuckingromantic.wordpress.com)

• Stephin Merritt geeks out about his vintage synth gear (MusicRadar.com)

• Paste Magazine ranks every song on the album (pastemagazine.com)

• The Future Bible Heroes cover the Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me” (YouTube)

• Discord & Rhyme’s 69 Love Songs playlist (Spotify)

• Discord & Rhyme’s Patreon

Discord & Rhyme Roll Call 

• Chris Willie Williams (host)

• Rich Bunnell (moderator)

• John McFerrin

• Amanda Rodgers

• Libby Cudmore

• B. Heard 

69 Love Songs tracklist 

Disc 1

1. Absolutely Cuckoo

2. I Don’t Believe in the Sun

3. All My Little Words

4. A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off

5. Reno Dakota

6. I Don’t Want to Get Over You

7. Come Back From San Francisco

8. The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side

9. Let’s Pretend We’re Bunny Rabbits

10. The Cactus Where Your Heart Should Be

11. I Think I Need a New Heart

12. The Book of Love

13. Fido, Your Leash Is Too Long

14. How Fucking Romantic

15. The One You Really Love

16. Punk Love

17. Parades Go By

18. Boa Constrictor

19. A Pretty Girl Is Like

20. My Sentimental Melody

21. Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing

22. Sweet-Lovin’ Man

23. The Things We Did and Didn’t Do

Disc 2

1. Roses

2. Love Is Like Jazz

3. When My Boy Walks Down the Street

4. Time Enough for Rocking When We’re Old

5. Very Funny

6. Grand Canyon

7. No One Will Ever Love You

8. If You Don’t Cry

9. You’re My Only Home

10. (Crazy For You But) Not That Crazy

11. My Only Friend

12. Promises of Eternity

13. World Love

14. Washington, D.C.

15. Long-Forgotten Fairytale

16. Kiss Me Like You Mean It

17. Papa Was a Rodeo

18. Epitaph for My Heart

19. Asleep and Dreaming

20. The Sun Goes Down and the World Goes Dancing

21. The Way You Say Good-Night

22. Abigail, Belle of Kilronan

23. I Shatter

Disc 3

1. Underwear

2. It’s a Crime

3. Busby Berkeley Dreams

4. I’m Sorry I Love You

5. Acoustic Guitar

6. The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure

7. Love in the Shadows

8. Bitter Tears

9. Wi’ Nae Wee Bairn Ye’ll Me Beget

10. Yeah! Oh, Yeah!

11. Experimental Music Love

12. Meaningless

13. Love Is Like a Bottle of Gin

14. Queen of the Savages

15. Blue You

16. I Can’t Touch You Anymore

17. Two Kinds of People

18. How to Say Goodbye

19. The Night You Can’t Remember

20. For We Are the King of the Boudoir

21. Strange Eyes

22. Xylophone Track

23. Zebra 

Other clips used 

The Magnetic Fields/other Stephin Merritt

• The Trouble I’ve Been Looking For

• The Flowers She Sent and the Flowers She Said She Sent

• Railroad Boy

• Nothing Matters When We're Dancing (Sense8 Remix)

• I Don’t Believe You (7” version)

• The Desperate Things You Made Me Do

• Not One of Us (solo Stephin Merritt)

• California Girls

• Lonely Days (Future Bible Heroes)

• The Day the Politicians Died

• Your Girlfriend’s Face

• She-Devils of the Deep (Future Bible Heroes)

• You and Me and the Moon

• Three-Way

• I Die

• Wi' Nae Wee Bairn Ye'll Me Beget (live)

• Hustle ‘76

• Born on a Train

• Take Ecstasy with Me (Obscurities version)

Others:

• Rod Stewart - Infatuation

• Air Supply - Making Love Out of Nothing at All

• The Smiths - Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

• Peter Gabriel - The Book of Love

• Jay-Z - 99 Problems

• Ween - The Fucked Jam

• Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians - My Wife and My Dead Wife

• The Carter Family - Keep on the Sunny Side

• Ramones - We're a Happy Family

• Frank Zappa - Flower Punk

• Tullycraft - The Punks Are Writing Love Songs

• Scott Walker - Rawhide

• Young Marble Giants - Searching for Mr. Right

• Frank Sinatra - A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody

• Roxy Music - A Song for Europe

• Mandy Patinkin - Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing

• Paul F. Tompkins - Jazz

• The Jesus and Mary Chain - Just Like Honey

• David Clement - Geriatrophilia

• They Might Be Giants - Which Describes How You're Feeling

• Fleetwood Mac - Over and Over

• Fleetwood Mac - The Ledge

• Fleetwood Mac - Sara

• Sarah McLachlan - Possession

• Billie Holiday - All of Me

• Bright Eyes - Haligh, Haligh, a Lie, Haligh

• Tom Jones - Delilah

• Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabaté - Debe

• The Beach Boys - Be True to Your School

• The Bay City Rollers - Saturday Night

• Pet Shop Boys - Up Against It

• New Order - Your Silent Face

• Erasure - A Little Respect

• Cyndi Lauper - Iko Iko

• Paul McCartney - Dance Tonight

• They Might Be Giants - All the Lazy Boyfriends

• The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem - Fare Thee Well Enniskillen

• Loreena McKennitt - The Star of the County Down

• Kronos Quartet and Tuvan Throat Singers - Kongorei

• Steve Reich - Pulses

• Talking Heads - Psycho Killer

• Aerosmith - Same Old Song and Dance

• Sparks - Hasta Mañana Monsieur

• Ace of Base - The Sign

• Bow Wow Wow - I Want Candy

• Felt - September Lady

• Pet Shop Boys - Love Is a Bourgeois Construct

• Jean-Michel Jarre - Oxygene (Part IV)

• Tom Waits - Virginia Avenue

• INXS - Bitter Tears

• Bob Dylan & The Band - Tears of Rage

• Steeleye Span - Two Magicians

• Orbital - Time Becomes

• The Olivia Tremor Control - The Sky Is a Harpsichord Canvas

• Steve Reich - Come Out

• Beulah - Popular Mechanics for Lovers

• David Byrne - A Self-Made Man

• Green Day - Boulevard of Broken Dreams

• The Moody Blues - Nights in White Satin

• George Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue (conductor: André Previn)

• The Human League - Seconds

• Heaven 17 - (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thing

• The Beatles - I Want You (She's So Heavy)

• Rihanna ft. Calvin Harris - We Found Love

• Eric Idle - I've Got a Little List (from The Mikado)

• Jonathan Groff - What Comes Next? (from Hamilton)

• Paul Simon - Further to Fly

• Ella Fitzgerald - I Love Paris

• The Nice - America

Band/album personnel 

• Stephin Merritt: Vocals, guitars, keyboards, percussion, sounds of all types, baleful stares (one imagines)

• Claudia Gonson: Drums, piano, vocals, Stephin wrangling, guitar on “Yeah! Oh, Yeah!”

• John Woo: Lead guitar, banjo, mandolin

• Sam Davol: Cello, flute

• Daniel Handler: Accordion, arrangement on “Asleep and Dreaming”

• LD Beghtol: Vocals, harmonium on “Xylophone Track”

• Dudley Klute: Vocals

• Shirley Simms: Vocals

• Ida Pearle: Violin on “The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side”

• Chris Ewan: Arrangement and instruments on “Promises of Eternity” and “It's a Crime,” theremin on “Blue You” (when it’s not just Claudia whistling).

Credits 

“Discord & Rhyme (theme),” composed by the Other Leading Brand, contains elements of: 

• Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf

• Amon Düül II - Dehypnotized Toothpaste

• The Dukes of Stratosphear - What in the World?? ...

• Faith No More - Midlife Crisis

• Herbie Hancock - Hornets

• Kraftwerk - Autobahn

• Talking Heads - Seen and Not Seen

• The Magnetic Fields - I Don’t Want to Get Over You (this episode only) 

You can buy or stream 69 Love Songs and other albums by the Magnetic Fields at their Bandcamp at themagneticfields.bandcamp.com, the official Stephin Merritt website at www.houseoftomorrow.com, your local record store, or the usual suspects such as Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, and Amazon. Follow Discord & Rhyme on Twitter @DiscordPod for news, updates, and other random stuff. Editing and production is by Rich Bunnell, and special thanks to our own Mike DeFabio, the Other Leading Brand, for production assistance (including the cold open for the episode), our theme song, and original music. See you next album, and be ever wonderful.