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69 Love Songs

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69 Love Songs is a three-volume concept album by The Magnetic Fields. As its title suggests, it comprises 69 love songs, all written by the band's leader, Stephin Merritt. The album was released in 1999 in the U.S. (as a box set with Merritt interview booklet, and as individual volumes), and in 2000 in Europe and Australia (box set without booklet).

Contents

Concept

The album was originally conceived as a grandiose musical revue. Stephin Merritt was sitting in a gay piano bar in Manhattan, listening to the pianist's interpretations of Stephen Sondheim songs, when he decided he ought to get into theatre music because he felt he had an aptitude for it. "I decided I'd write one hundred love songs as a way of introducing myself to the world. Then I realized how long that would be. So I settled on sixty-nine. I'd have a theatrical revue with four drag queens. And whoever the audience liked best at the end of the night would get paid." [Interview] in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, 1 September 1999

Performers

While Stephin Merritt usually sings all lead vocals on Magnetic Fields albums, he needed to provide a richer variety of approaches across the nearly three-hour length of the album. Thus Merritt shares lead vocals with fellow band member (and manager) Claudia Gonson, as well as three guest vocalists: LD Beghtol, Dudley Klute and Shirley Simms. The basic quartet of musicians in The Magnetic Fields is also supplemented on a few songs with accordion and keyboard by novelist Daniel Handler (who also writes under the pen name Lemony Snicket), and with electronic backing tracks by Chris Ewen.

Genres and themes

The variety of 69 Love Songs also derives from the many song genres that Merritt raids and filters through his own gay miserablist sensibility. Merritt has said "69 Love Songs is not remotely an album about love. It's an album about love songs, which are very far away from anything to do with love."[Interview] in The Independent, 14 April 2000. Some of the genres are obvious, as in the songs "Punk Love", "Love is Like Jazz", "World Love" and "Wi' Nae Wee Bairn Ye'll Me Beget". Other songs indirectly reference some of Merritt's favourite artists, including Fleetwood Mac ("No One Will Ever Love You"), Cole Porter ("Zebra"), Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark ("Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits"), The Jesus and Mary Chain ("When My Boy Walks Down the Street"), and Irving Berlin ("A Pretty Girl is Like...").

Several of the songs bend genders as well as genres. For example: a male vocal sings "He's going to be my wife" ("When My Boy Walks Down the Street"); female vocals sing "bring me back my girl" ("Acoustic Guitar") and "Should pretty boys in discos / distract you from your novel" ("Come Back from San Francisco"). Other common themes include place names (e.g. Washington, DC, Lower East Side, North Carolina, Paris, Venice), animals (e.g. bear, goldfish, jellyfish, rabbit, bat, dog, boa constrictor, cockroach), and -- in common with all Merritt's work -- dancing.

Track listing

69 Love Songs Vol. 1 cover

Volume 1

  1. "Absolutely Cuckoo" – 1:34
  2. "I Don't Believe in the Sun" – 4:16
  3. "All My Little Words" – 2:6
  4. "A Chicken with Its Head Cut Off" – 2:41
  5. "Reno Dakota" – 1:05
  6. "I Don't Want to Get Over You" – 2:22
  7. "Come Back from San Francisco" – 2:48
  8. "The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side" – 3:43
  9. "Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits" – 2:25
  10. "The Cactus Where Your Heart Should Be" – 1:11
  11. "I Think I Need a New Heart" – 2:32
  12. "The Book of Love" – 2:42
  13. "Fido, Your Leash is Too Long" – 2:33
  14. "How Fucking Romantic" – 0:58
  15. "The One You Really Love" – 2:53
  16. "Punk Love" – 0:58
  17. "Parades Go By" – 2:56
  18. "Boa Constrictor" – 0:58
  19. "A Pretty Girl is Like... 1:50
  20. "My Sentimental Melody" – 3:07
  21. "Nothing Matters When We're Dancing" – 2:27
  22. "Sweet-Lovin' Man" – 4:59
  23. "The Things We Did and Didn't Do" – 2:11
69 Love Songs Vol. 2 cover

Volume 2

  1. "Roses" – 0:27
  2. "Love is Like Jazz" – 2:56
  3. "When My Boy Walks Down the Street" – 2:38
  4. "Time Enough for Rocking When We're Old" – 2:03
  5. "Very Funny" – 1:26
  6. "Grand Canyon" – 2:28
  7. "No One Will Ever Love You" – 3:14
  8. "If You Don't Cry" – 3:06
  9. "You're My Only Home" – 2:17
  10. "(Crazy for You But) Not That Crazy" – 2:18
  11. "My Only Friend" – 2:01
  12. "Promises of Eternity" – 3:46
  13. "World Love" – 3:07
  14. "Washington, D.C." – 1:53
  15. "Long-Forgotten Fairytale" – 3:37
  16. "Kiss Me Like You Mean It" – 2:00
  17. "Papa Was a Rodeo" – 5:01
  18. "Epitaph for My Heart" – 2:50
  19. "Asleep and Dreaming" – 1:53
  20. "The Sun Goes Down and the World Goes Dancing" – 2:46
  21. "The Way You Say Good-Night" – 2:44
  22. "Abigail, Belle of Kilronan" – 2:00
  23. "I Shatter" – 3:09
69 Love Songs Vol. 3 cover

Volume 3

  1. "Underwear" – 2:49
  2. "It's a Crime" – 3:54
  3. "Busby Berkeley Dreams" – 3:36
  4. "I'm Sorry I Love You" – 3:06
  5. "Acoustic Guitar" – 2:37
  6. "The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure" – 3:10
  7. "Love in the Shadows" – 2:54
  8. "Bitter Tears" – 2:51
  9. "Wi' Nae Wee Bairn Ye'll Me Beget" – 1:55
  10. "Yeah! Oh, Yeah!" – 2:19
  11. "Experimental Music Love" – 0:29
  12. "Meaningless" – 2:08
  13. "Love is Like a Bottle of Gin" – 1:46
  14. "Queen of the Savages" – 2:12
  15. "Blue You" – 3:03
  16. "I Can't Touch You Anymore" – 3:05
  17. "Two Kinds of People" – 1:10
  18. "How to Say Goodbye" – 2:48
  19. "The Night You Can't Remember" – 2:17
  20. "For We Are the King of the Boudoir" – 1:14
  21. "Strange Eyes" – 2:01
  22. "Xylophone Track" – 2:47
  23. "Zebra" – 2:15

Live performances

69 Love Songs is The Magnetic Fields' most celebrated album to date, and songs from it regularly feature in their live performances. On seven occasions (five in the U.S., two in London) The Magnetic Fields performed all 69 love songs, in order, over two nights.

Further information

There is a [69 Love Songs wiki site], which provides information and references for each song, plus links and details to relevant interviews, quotes, reviews and influences. Much of this entry is derived from that source.

Notes

External links

 

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