69 Love Songs

I don't know why I haven't mentioned this earlier. I've been bugging poor old anarki13 about this every other time I post on his blog.
69 Love Songs is a triple CD album by the not-so-known The Magnetic Fields. Why would a blog about computer games, medicine, and jarredom mention such a soppy album? Well, cos not only is it one of the best hidden nuggets of music around, but it's also got nearly nothing to do with lovey-dovey love, but more about betrayal, lust, passion, sadness, happiness, adultry, and anything else that no one else would sing about other than incomprehensible metal bands.

The 69 songs on the album cover a wide range of genres also, from folk rock, to electronic, to pop and even experimental, it's just a brilliant experience all together.

The main man behind the music is a Stephen Merritt, a genius at lyric writing and composing at the same time. With a dull, monotonous haunting voice like moby, he adds more meaning to his music by singing the majority himself (with a few other vocalists sometimes).

With song titles like The Cactus Where You're Heart Should Be, It's a Crime (To Fall in Love), and Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits, you know that this is a special album that deserves recognition.

Worth mentioning is "I Don't Wanna Get Over You", a song about giving up on trying to forget, and about living in blue. Sung with Merritt's trademark dull and dark voice (that you wouldn't expect to be so sentimental and sad), to a bouncy sing-a-long tune that again contradicts the sad and sentimental lyrics, which are about living in blue forever, it's a great example of the genius behind this album.

My personal favourites have got to be:

Absolutely Cookoo:

don't fall in love with me yet

we only recently met

true i'm in love with you

but you might decide i'm a nut

All My Little Words:

you are a splendid butterfly

it is your wings that make you beautiful

and I could make you fly away

but I could never make you stay

Reno Dakota:

reno dakota I'm reaching my quota of tears for the year

alas and alak you just don't call me back

you have just disappered

it makes me drink beer

I Don't Wanna Get Over You:

I don't wanna get over you

I guess I could take a sleeping pill

and sleep at will

and not have to go through what I go throuh

I guess I should take Prozac, right

and just smile all night

at somebody new

The Luckiest Guy On The Lower East Side:

Andy would bicycle across town

in the rain to bring you candy

and John would buy the gown

for you to wear to the prom, with Tom

the astronomer who'd name star for you

but I'm the luckiest guy on the lower east side

cos I've got wheels and you wanna go for a ride

It's A Crime (To Fall In Love):

my mother said gently

syou can buy her a bently

but my son she'll only drive it away

I didn't listen

cos my brain was missing

and I only found it today

Yeah! Oh, Yeah!:

Are you out of love with me

are you longing to be free

do I drive you up the tree?

Yeah! Oh, Yeah!

though I need you more than air

is it true you just don't care?

are you having an affair?

Yeah! Oh, Yeah!