BILMS playlist entry #2

The Magnetic Fields: "Strange Powers"



It seems like any article I read about Stephin Merritt inevitably calls 69 Love Songs his greatest triumph. As much as I enjoyed those albums, it is all his earlier works which remain my favorites. Maybe the songwriting did get better with 69 Love Songs—I’m not a good enough musician to judge—but my appreciation of the lyrics decreased. Following are my ten favorite lines from Magnetic Fields songs. Notice the marked bias towards his early work.

#1
Every time you feel wonderful, baby, I feel bad.
Either you don't love me or I don't love you, oh yeah.
When you remind me of all the good times I feel sad.
Either you don't love me or I don't love you, oh yeah.
(“Either You Don’t Love Me or I Don’t Love You,” House of Tomorrow)

Sometime in your 20s you were in this relationship. There were no glaring problems. He was acting OK, you were acting OK. But when you got near the end there was something wrong that you just couldn’t put your finger on. Neither of you were really happy, and you couldn’t quite figure out how to end it. Solution: rather than bite the bullet and break up, you decide to rummage around for obsolete radio equipment.

#2
When we kiss it feels
Like a flying saucer landing.
(“Strange Powers,” Holiday)

For most of us, I feel like metaphors and similes are best avoided. But they can be brilliant in the hands of a master.

#3
I saw you today
At the café blasé
And thought of the nights
When we had firefights.
(“Living In An Abondoned Firehouse With You,” Distant Plastic Trees)

How perfect is that word, “firefights”? It isn’t clear whether we should take it as something explicitly sexual or as particularly charged banter. Either way it evokes a relationship filled with equal parts intimacy and sparring. The placement at the end of two successive couplets gives the word an extra kick that further accentuates the passion, especially played against “blasé” two lines earlier.

#4
Butter won’t melt in her mouth,
But you will.
(“Falling In Love With The Wolfboy,” Distant Plastic Trees)

I was in this dating disaster in my 20s as well. Don’t go for the cold, aloof ones—no matter how interesting they might be. “She’s a trollop in paisley” from the same song almost made the list. We don’t use the word “trollop” nearly enough.

#5
Why are we still screeching
When we mean soft things?
We should be whispering all the time.
(“100,000 Fireflies,” Distant Plastic Trees)

Fuck all those songwriters through the ages that have brainwashed us into thinking a good relationship doesn’t involve arguing and fighting. Fuck them. Fuck them for making us think we need to achieve effortless accord. Thank you, Steven, for expressing the love that is beneath the bickering.

#6
And your eyes are Kansas City:
In Kansas and in Missouri.
(“Long Vermont Roads,” The Charm of the Highway Strip)

But you’re not sure if he’s saying “Missouri” or “misery.” I’m a sucker for a pun.

#7
Like a Galapagos turtle
We grow old and stay that way
Build a nest in the sand dunes
Lay our eggs and walk away.
(“Jeremy,” The Wayward Bus)

The saddest lyrics I can think of. And another great simile.

#8
I was hoarse you were mean
We designed drum machines….
They made sounds just like drums.
I was young you were dumb.
Now you’re older and I’m wiser.
We design synthesizers.
(“Falling Out Of Love With You,” Wasps Nests)

You have to be a bit of a bitch to write lyrics like this. I’m not criticizing; I can be a bitch, too.

#9
But when the city’s so hot
The winos burst into flames.
(“Aging Spinsters,” Wasps Nests)

Once you hear the song, you can’t walk by a homeless person in August without giggling to yourself, even if you feel slightly guilty for doing it. In the same album he also refers to pigeons as “rats with wings,” another great urban image.

#10
Highway 405 will take you
From the Boom Boom Room
To interstate 5 which goes right to
The San Diego Zoo.
(“San Diego Zoo,” Wasps Nests)

What can I say? I’m a SoCal guy. Mark this one up to provincialism…and fond remembrances of a night at the Boom Boom Room that I won’t go into on this blog.

My Guys

Before I go any further, I should introduce the main guys in my life.

First off is my boyfriend/partner. We can’t agree what term to use. He thinks boyfriend is too casual; I think partner is too neutered. We probably will get married just to resolve the dispute.

He’s here working on one of his paintings. I should clarify something: we are also business partners. So in that sense, I don’t think the term is inappropriate. We are co-owners of a publishing company, Spunky Books. He has one book out now and another on the way August 8. My book is coming out sometime in the late summer or fall. The exact release date is a closely guarded secret.

My other guy is the namesake of the publishing company, Spunky the Cat.

As would befit a cat with a publishing company, The Spunks is an avid reader. Unlike him, I didn’t read Charles Mann’s 1491. The passages he shared with me, however, were very intriguing. Besides managing the company, Spunky’s interests include eating rats, napping, and marking the bushes outside our apartment with his scent.

BILMS playlist entry #1

Space Needle: “Before I Lose My Style"

All the energy that once went into making mix tapes I have redirected into perfecting my iPod playlists. I don’t think it is just a product of evolving technology; the playlists make more sense. I don’t think anybody I made those tapes for ever appreciated them. Really, they were more for me. The satisfaction came in listening to the tape before I gave it away. It was all an experiment to see how much better my favorite music sounded when arranged with other songs with a similar mood.

My most successful playlist of the last year has been a musical expression of my frustration and disappointment over finishing graduate school. I have an upbeat playlist designed to be listened to during the daytime and a moody playlist especially for nighttime. I have a playlist titled “A Little Bit Emo” that is the soundtrack for a Wes Anderson film that only exists in my head. And I have a playlist of songs that go with my upcoming novel, a playlist that served as inspiration and touchstone during the writing of the book.

This song is a pretty obvious first entry into this blog since I stole its title for the title of the book, but there is a second significance as well. It is also a song I first heard on a mixtape. When I said nobody ever appreciated my mixtapes, I was exaggerating. I can think of two exceptions. The first is my partner, Robert--but technically I gave him a playlist rather than a mixtape. (I figure I have to mention him here because he is probably the only person who will take the time to read this blog. Love you, hon!) The second exception was Aaron, this guy who I worked with at Starbucks in the mid90s. I was gay, in denial about it, living at home, and attending the local community college. Aaron was straight, barely making ends meet, and trying to make music. We mainly just talked at work and only hung out a couple times away from work. He was one of those people who you connect with for a short time in your life and then lose track of when you both move on to new things. As unlikely as our friendship might have been at the time, he gave me mix tapes I still listen to on the tape player in my car, almost a decade latter. I like to think he appreciated the ones I made him just as much. That portion of the 90s was a lonely time for me, and the connection of those mixtapes meant a lot.

The best tape Aaron gave me intermixed music with snippets of this spooky 50s children’s album. The album layered dialogue from Howdie Doodie over conservative soundbites from McCarthy-era politicians. This song was on side two of the tape.