Pick Only One: Magnetic Fields

the best one.. it sounds like freaked out joy division or something.. maybe it belongs in the pyshcedelic new wave thread..?

-- Shadow of the Waxwing (noodle_vagu...), June 14th, 2006.

teehee

YES, yes, yeeeesss.

All the Umbrellas In London

It looks like ~ 75% of the choices here are on "69 Love Songs" ... surprising?

if you don't like the singing on this track, then its fair to say you wont like the singing on hardly any Magnetic Fields songs. try the wasps's nest by the 6ths.

also I don't really understand your detractions. what's wrong with being "on the nose"?

he definately uses cliched statments, but that doesn't mean the song itself is cliched. he uses the cliches to reinforce the fragility and hopelessness of "all my LITTLE words" and the fact that "I could never make you stay".

this song is just another perfect example of merrit's genius. of course its sentimental. what love song sing isn't?!?!? however, there is a huge difference between hallmark card sentimental (which are unavoidably cliched) and Merrit sentimental which is original, witty and charged with understated emotion.

not sure if I agree with you there. can you back this up with examples? I tend to think that his songs are refreshingly unambiguous.

Um, does the fact that that track doesn't have Merritt singing want to make you re-evaluate the statement? I'd say the reverse is true. If that's your favorite song by the Mag Fields, you probably prefer the 6ths. And if I'm "trolling" because I don't like the voice of one of Merritt's collaborators, I just don't have much to say in response to that. Personally, I think Merritt should sing all his compositions (even the best 6th songs ones generally are delivered in voices that approximate his voice anyway and I'd be more than happy if they re-recorded the first albums with him singing).

Now, Tim, at least, makes an excellent defense of the song.

Personally, my appreciation of the Magnetic Fields has nothing to do with viewing the songs as sincere or not. I take it for granted that they're (and, by default, he's) not. As such, I like his songs that are more purely bitter and cynical. I think they are more honest since they more accurately fit his worldview. The fact that his statements of emotion and sentiment come off as cliches (and everyone seems to agree on that) but only take on new meaning when juxtaposed with the more bitter and scathing feelings, supports that view. So I guess I don't buy the sentiment in Merritt's songs. I don't believe any of the characters he creates are capable of love. And that's why I don't particularly like that song. And if this means I get told that I don't "get it" or "them" (an odd accusation since I've been listening to them for 12 years now), it's basically sayinh that there's only one way to listen to and appreciate them.

doh! your right there. ok, just disregard the commments about the vocals. however, this doesn't change anything with regards to the discussion about the lyrics.

I don't believe any of the characters he creates are capable of love.

it doesn't help that the focus of discussion (and choices) is on 69 Love Songs as it's a giant academic exercise ("i'll write a punk/country/etc/etc/etc (x64) love song"), no? hell, they're all concept albums. maybe this is why get lost is my favorite mf album. the concept doesn't seem to impose itself too much on the songs/stories/lyrics. some of his best are there -- "you and me and the moon", "love is lighter than air", "save a secret for the moon", "all the umbrellas in london", "why i cry". i'd say many of these would also qualify as his most heartfelt.

Personally, my appreciation of the Magnetic Fields has nothing to do with viewing the songs as sincere or not. I take it for granted that they're (and, by default, he's) not. As such, I like his songs that are more purely bitter and cynical. I think they are more honest since they more accurately fit his worldview. The fact that his statements of emotion and sentiment come off as cliches (and everyone seems to agree on that) but only take on new meaning when juxtaposed with the more bitter and scathing feelings, supports that view. So I guess I don't buy the sentiment in Merritt's songs. I don't believe any of the characters he creates are capable of love. And that's why I don't particularly like that song.

I don't really know enough about his world view to comment on that, so I won't go there. however, you seem to contradict yourself here. if you don't care whether or not the song is sincere, then why do have a problem with believing the characters in this song or not.

his statements of emotion and sentiment come off as cliches (and everyone seems to agree on that) but only take on new meaning when juxtaposed with the more bitter and scathing feelings,

I don't agree at all. he USES cliches in his songs. that much is true, but that's not the same as being cliched, which you seem to be implying. he's both making fun of the cliche and using it for a different purpose. as I mentioned above the cliched statements in this song reinforce a sense of fragility and hopelessness.

yes, there is a lot of bitterness and cynicism in his lyrics, but how does that make his songs insincere? to me its truthful. if being in love truthfully was not important to the song, then there would be no sense of loss, bitterness or pain.

Rate the sincerity level of the following:

I was young and determined to be wined and dined and ermined
and I worked at it all around the clock.
Now one of these days in my fancy clothes,
I'm a going back home and punch the nose
of the one who broke my heart ... in Little Rock.

It really doesn't pay to be a gloomy pill
It's absolutely most ridic, positively sil,
The rain may pitter patter
It really doesn't matter
For life can be delish
with a sunny disposish!

Let's compare it to film or novels. If a contemporary filmmaker adapts older models of filmmaking, it'd be impossible not to see it as some sort of metacommentary on the form that it is being employed How else can one watch a Guy Maddin film? The same is true with novels (see Pynchon or David Mitchell's use of older literary forms). I don't see how Merritt can escape that.

So what precisely about Merritt makes this an issue? I can think of three things, but they're all off base. People assume he must be kidding because of ... funny rhymes? Ah, but that's why I slipped in "Little Girl from Little Rock," with its determined/ermined! Because he plays clever textual tricks in his lyrics? Ah, but that's entirely a hallmark of exactly the kind of music he's playing with here -- his models were every bit as self-consciously playful, and every bit as formalist, in the way they wrote! People assume he must be kidding because ... they detect some gap between the "romantic" stage-play quaintness of the format and the rather more everyday situations Merritt tackles in his lyrics? There is something there -- that really is something Merritt plays with -- but I have no idea why we'd connect that to the notion of insincerity. If anything, it's the opposite -- often it feels like a very sincere attempt to make those forms and those writing styles be able to talk to the present, and not just sit in a museum case.

I don't understand the "personal issues of authorship" stuff, by the way: Merritt gives his songs to other people to sing; he's more interested in composing and recording than performing; he wrote a bunch of operettas, for god's sake -- he keeps his mode of authorship as close to his models as is allowed these days.

So what exactly is insincere? There's no doubt that he really likes the music he uses as a model. There's no doubt that he intends the emotional thrust of his songs; there's no doubt that he intends them to work, in a lot of the same arch, coy, and droll ways that songs like these have always worked. So what's insincere? What doesn't he actually mean?

Playing dress-up isn't insincere, either; one can play dress-up quite in earnest.

I also still don't see how you can unproblematically take a model of songwriting from 100 years ago and transpose it onto the present without raising any questions of intention and reception. Even if the intentions are the same (you suggest they are by dismissing any irony in Merritt’s work that’s not also in theirs – I’m not sure but I can concede the point), the way they are received is different. And it revolves around issues of authorship since those 100 years are predicated on a collapse between high and low culture so that now Merritt can be viewed as a "songwriting genius" in the present when the models that he's working with was perceived as anonymous cheap entertainment. Someone with a better grasp of the history of popular music can correct me if, say, a mid-period figure like Cole Porter was lauded in the New York Times the same way as Merritt is now. In other words, I'd say how people relate to Merritt's music now is fundamentally different than how people 100 years ago related to the songs that inspire him....

I think the part of your argument here that's bugging me, though, is the first part, which is bizarrely ... conventional? You say you don't hear depth of emotion or anguish in Merritt's songs, but that's not what you mean -- what you mean is that you don't hear conventional modern expressions of emotion or anguish, right? You don't hear the vigorous modern singing tricks (scream, grunt, wail) that currently signify "emotion" and "anguish." But compared to the models we're talking about, Merritt's singers aren't that much more reserved. (And when they are, that's possibly part of the change in context; being attracted, in retrospect, to those styles would surely involve some attraction to those more reserved singing styles.) And here we get into the whole Merritt-and-racism debate, because what's the underlying thing here? Merritt's writing kinda deliberately eschews a lot of the things black/soul singing has brought into modern pop. And so far as anyone can tell, that's all to sincere.

And on an even simpler more boneheaded level: the guy's just droll. There's no reason to distrust someone's depth of emotion just because he's being a bit droll about it.

Bingo.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000BQW88K.01-A2LE3791IZQJE._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

If his songs work for you on that level and they hit you in the gut, I have no problem with that. They don't for me (and I suspect others who also appreciate his work). More than just droll or whimsical, Merritt is a smartass who is too in love with his own cleverness to connect with other people in his songs. So l though I would still maintain there's no real feeling in Merritt's work and it has nothing to do with levels of whimsy or a lack of emotiveness, I can admit part of it just may be a subjective response. It could very well be a product of the idiom within which he's working. Perhaps, simply put, the country and folk idioms within which Callahan and Berman work are far more affective (and, as a result, effective) for me. On the other hand, perhaps the tin pan alley/musical theater genre just doesn't work for me on that level.

"Pierre Menard, Author Of The Quixote" to thread.

Oh, hey, here he is now... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Menard_(fictional_character)

I also still don't see how you can unproblematically take a model of songwriting from 100 years ago and transpose it onto the present without raising any questions of intention and reception.

Would you say the same thing if he were writing piano sonatas or orchestral symphonies?

Although, Jacobo, I understand where you're coming from and don't entirely disagree. I think this is an interesting discussion.

It's just that you talked about insincerity and irony, and I'm obviously against the idea that these concepts have anything to do with one another. Being arch is not "insincere"; being coy is not "ironic"; being a bit of a formalist isn't being a joker or liar, etc.

So like I don't disagree with your response ("more clever than affecting"), I'm just really skeptical of pinning terms like that onto it.

One of the reasons I think 69 Love Songs works so well for the most part is actually the collision b/w tin pan alley etc. with folk/country style arrangements and performances: we associate the latter wth a certain type of plaintiveness and honesty, and the former with an arch lightness of touch. By combining them you get these songs which are, i dunno, plaintively arch. In "Come Back From San Francisco" the vocalist sings:

"You need me
like the wind
needs the trees
To blow in;
like the moon needs poetry
you need me"

And the lyric walks both lines simultaneously: on the one hand it's got that "clever" well-shaped feeling of standards like "Fly Me To The Moon", but the meaning of the lyrics combine with the sparse, fragile performance to create a mood which is devastatingly self-abegnating.

Love the implication as well: the notion that it's the things/people we affect/inspire which give us meaning.... the singer sees her role of utter passivity and responsiveness as the lynch-pin to her lover's identity.

"railroad boy" for everything else. i remember hearing it for the first time, in a friend's apartment in new york. (actually, hang on. thinking about this, it might have been in alext's bedroom in edinburgh. either way, i obviously don't properly remember it at all. bugger.) i do recall, however, that the first time i heard it - whether i was gazing at the manhattan skyline or at one of alex's socks - it sounded like the distillation of everything i loved about music.

Well ol' King Kong was a helluva gorilla
he stood four stories tall
they shot him with missles from aeroplanes
but he refused to fall
with Faye Ray in the palm of his hand
he'll walk right over the world
cause just like me he would do anything
just to keep his girl

See also any "stark" "creepy" cover version of any well-known pop song ever for a shining example of the malleability of songwriting.

in this case, all other answers = madness

Busby Berkeley Dreams https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntRnoQ7W7DI

(I remember thinking, a couple of years back, that this was one of the more impressive youtube fan videos I'd seen. Really surprised that two years later it still has so few hits.)

the first i ever heard: 100,000 fireflies

S.M. on sincerity, between songs a couple weeks ago: "Do you really think Mick Jagger can't get no satisfaction?"

I think that "Suddenly There Is A Tidal Wave" is one of the (if not the) only MF songs that I still hear without feeling annoyed. So that one. I like to imagine an alternate reality where we never found out what SM's singing voice (or talking voice, or prose-writing voice) sounded like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL8fduJfCX8

This is a bit tangential, sorry, but whenever I'm reminded of one of one of my favorite youtube fan videos, such as Busby Berkeley Dreams, above, I can't help thinking of my all-time favorite youtube fan video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daUyogS1wjM

absurd to try to pick one, but in some ways I think "When You're Old and Lonely" is the perfect Magnetic Fields song.

If I were to choose one purely on the basis of the music, it would be one of these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MokC9aoQ6YA&feature=related
Magnetic Fields – The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84DrsZ2O5XU&feature=related
Magnetic Fields – I Think I Need a New Heart

"100,000 fireflies", but only cuz, like jen echo, it's the first MF song i loved. probably 20 songs in the running for second place.

predictably i prefer 'old orchard beach' on the flip

"When I'm Out of Town"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkz0UruvXSc

interesting conversation about sincerity and emotional affect/effect up above. when a song seems as though it's supposed to be poignant, people often mistake the way it makes them feel, personally, for the depth of "real emotion" supposedly present in it. if they're moved, then they assume that it must be an authentic expression of the artist's feelings. if not, then not. never made sense to me. lots of bad poetry that doesn't make anyone feel anything is motivated by intense storms of teenage emotion, and some of the most moving art in the world is the product more of careful craft than the moment's angst.

^ stating the obvious since 1967