Dear listeners,
I hope everyone who was in the path of Monday’s eclipse enjoyed the view! I confess I didn’t acquire eclipse glasses in time and couldn’t see anything too spectacular from where I was in Brooklyn, but at least Friday’s Amplifier playlist gave me a soundtrack for imagining some awe-inspiring grandeur.
Today’s playlist is something a little different, and more earthbound: a tribute to the Magnetic Fields, the long-running indie band that is currently on a tour commemorating the 25th anniversary of “69 Love Songs,” its landmark 1999 triple album, which I happen to adore very much.
“69 Love Songs” is exactly what it says on the tin: nearly three consecutive hours of amorous-themed tunes, all written by the group’s mastermind Stephin Merritt. The album is a staggering showcase of his range as a songwriter, covering just about every genre imaginable and thoroughly chronicling the good (“The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side”), the bad (“No One Will Ever Love You”) and the ugly (“The Cactus Where Your Heart Should Be”) sides of love.
The tour is currently in the middle of an eight-night run at Manhattan’s Town Hall, where the band’s original members are playing the album in its entirety for the first time in over two decades. (Because a 69-song set is daunting, they are splitting the album up over two consecutive nights.)
For today’s playlist, I attempted something that I found very, very difficult: choosing my 10 favorite tracks off “69 Love Songs.” In classic Amplifier fashion, though, I found the task impossible and allowed myself one extra song. I can already hear some of you shouting at your screens — “What, no ‘I Don’t Want to Get Over You’? And no ‘Reno Dakota’?!” — but these are just my personal picks. One of the most enjoyable parts of dissecting this dense album is comparing notes with other fans; everyone seems to have their own quirky and somewhat inexplicable preferences. (I almost put “Kiss Me Like You Mean It” on this list, for example.)
May this playlist serve as a less intimidating introduction to the album, if you’re unfamiliar with it, or a tantalizing refresher if you are. No playlist can duplicate the musical roller-coaster ride that is listening to “69 Love Songs” in full — an experience I would recommend to any music fan. By design, and to paraphrase one of its greatest tracks, some of it is just transcendental, some of it is delightfully dumb.
You can’t use a bulldozer to study orchids,
Lindsay
Listen along while you read.
1. “All My Little Words”
An exquisite heartbreaker sung with rich pathos by LD Beghtol, who died in 2020, this third track on the first disc is an easy highlight of the whole collection. It’s also the song on which Merritt coins an eminently useful new word: “unboyfriendable.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
2. “When My Boy Walks Down the Street”
“Grand pianos crash together when my boy walks down the street,” Merritt sings on this coolly catchy, lyrically vivid fuzz-pop number, which imagines the object of his affection as the star of a surreal cinematic montage: “There are whole new kinds of weather when he walks to his new beat.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
3. “No One Will Ever Love You”
The pure-toned vocalist Shirley Simms sings many of the sweetest of the “69 Love Songs,” but on this memorable, heart-string-tugging track she cuts her sugar with a heavy dose of arsenic, telling an indifferent lover, “No one will ever love you, honestly/No one will ever love you for your honesty.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
4. “Grand Canyon”
Personally, this one is in my Top 3. A deceptively simple song elevated into the sublime by an unexpected, almost hymnlike ascending chord, “Grand Canyon” contrasts mythic metaphor with the ordinary reality of romance as Merritt sings, devastatingly, “I’m just me, I’m only me/And you used to love me that way.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
5. “Busby Berkeley Dreams”
Let’s keep the devastation going with this wrenching piano ballad that stages a lost love as an “outrageously beautiful” Old Hollywood musical number worthy of the director and choreographer himself. “Gold Diggers of ’69,” anyone?
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
6. “Acoustic Guitar”
On the only song I can think of that name-checks Charo, Gwar and Steve Earle, the vocalist Claudia Gonson strikes the perfect balance between tongue-in-cheek meta-wit and sincere emotion, making this sparse, plaintive tune one of Disc 3’s most arresting and quotable moments.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
7. “(Crazy for You but) Not That Crazy”
A wry synth-pop number that Merritt sings in a droning deadpan, this song tests the outer limits of lovesickness: “I built a ship with my own hands, to take us to the moon/I took a pen in my own hand and wrote you a hundred tunes.” Bonus points for the little Flamin’ Groovies-esque jangle that decorates the final chorus.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
8. “Fido, Your Leash Is Too Long”
I had to include at least one of the sillier songs on the album, to approximate the full “69 Love Songs” experience. This punny, double-entendre-filled tune isn’t a total goof, though — it’s also supremely catchy.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
9. “Sweet-Lovin’ Man”
Perhaps my favorite Gonson performance of the whole project. Merritt pens the perfect melody to showcase her voice on this bittersweet but openhearted song. Singing along into a hairbrush is optional but recommended.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
10. “The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure”
I was very into this song in college, because I was proud to have recently learned who Ferdinand de Saussure was. Merritt opts for a high level of difficulty here in attempting to write a high-concept pop song about murdering an influential Swiss semiotician, and he somehow nails it. With expertly placed handclaps, too!
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
11. “The Book of Love”
Much of Merritt’s music is inspired by pop standards, and in this 12th track on the first disc of “69 Love Songs,” he actually managed to write a lasting one of his own. “The Book of Love” has now been covered by countless artists — Peter Gabriel being one of the first and most prominent — but there’s still a unique and impossible-to-top power to Merritt’s resignedly sincere vocal on the original version. 10/10, perfect song.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
The Amplifier Playlist
“10 (Or Actually, 11) of My Favorite ‘69 Love Songs’” track list
Track 1: “All My Little Words”
Track 2: “When My Boy Walks Down the Street”
Track 3: “No One Will Ever Love You”
Track 4: “Grand Canyon”
Track 5: “Busby Berkeley Dreams”
Track 6: “Acoustic Guitar”
Track 7: “(Crazy for You but) Not That Crazy”
Track 8: “Fido, Your Leash Is Too Long”
Track 9: “Sweet-Lovin’ Man”
Track 10: “The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure”
Track 11: “The Book of Love”
Bonus Tracks
“My first reaction was, ‘Wow, that seems kind of odd,’” the Breeders’ bassist Josephine Wiggs said. “But after I’d thought about it for a while, I thought, ‘That’s actually really genius.’” I loved this piece by my friend Jenn Pelly, who on Saturday hung out with the Breeders before their second of four shows at Madison Square Garden opening for the pop star Olivia Rodrigo. I was at the show on Friday night, and was amused to see some giddy tweens headbanging during their set — plus a girl a few rows back from me who put her hands over her ears during the distorted pre-chorus of “Cannonball.” To each her own.
The post The Magnetic Fields Wrote ‘69 Love Songs.’ Here’s 11 of the Best. appeared first on New York Times.