50 Song Memoir The Magnetic Fields

• 166: Wonder Where I'm From02:45
• 267: Come Back as a Cockroach02:35
• 368: A Cat Called Dionysus02:48
• 469: Judy Garland03:18
• 570: They're Killing Children Over There02:38
• 671 I Think I'll Make Another World02:57
• 772: Eye Contact02:56
• 873: It Could Have Been Paradise03:08
• 974: No02:56
• 1075: My Mama Ain't03:01
• 1176: Hustle 7603:01
• 1277: Life Ain't All Bad04:17
• 1378: The Blizzard of '7802:59
• 1479: Rock'n'Roll Will Ruin Your Life02:59
• 1580: London by Jetpack02:59
• 1681: How to Play the Synthesizer03:07
• 1782: Happy Beeping03:12
• 1883: Foxx and I02:44
• 1984: Danceteria!03:09
• 2085: Why I Am Not a Teenager03:04
• 2186: How I Failed Ethics02:57
• 2287: At the Pyramid03:09
• 2388: Ethan Frome02:24
• 2489: The 1989 Musical Marching Zoo02:45
• 2590: Dreaming in Tetris03:21
• 2691: The Day I Finally...02:21
• 2792: Weird Diseases03:10
• 2893: Me and Fred and Dave and Ted03:09
• 2994: Haven't Got a Penny02:54
• 3095: A Serious Mistake03:11
• 3196: I'm Sad!02:12
• 3297: Eurodisco Trio03:16
• 3398: Lovers' Lies03:07
• 3499: Fathers in the Clouds02:52
• 3500: Ghosts of the Marathon Dancers03:06
• 3601: Have You Seen It in the Snow?02:53
• 3702: Be True to Your Bar03:36
• 3803: The Ex and I02:59
• 3904: Cold-Blooded Man03:06
• 4005: Never Again03:16
• 4106: "Quotes"02:59
• 4207: In the Snow White Cottages02:52
• 4308: Surfin'02:48
• 4409: Till You Come Back to Me02:30
• 4510: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea03:04
• 4611: Stupid Tears02:46
• 4712: You Can Never Go Back to New York03:13
• 4813: Big Enough for Both of Us03:04
• 4914: I Wish I Had Pictures03:08
• 5015: Somebody's Fetish03:40
• Total Runtime02:30:21

Info for 50 Song Memoir

Nonesuch Records releases the Magnetic Fields’ 50 Song Memoir on March 3, 2017. The five-album-set chronicles the 50 years of songwriter Stephin Merritt’s life with one song per year; it was produced by Stephin Merritt with additional production by Thomas Bartlett and Charles Newman. On tour, the Magnetic Fields perform the 50 Song Memoir over two nights per city, beginning tomorrow and Saturday, November 18 and 19, at MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA, and continuing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) on December 2 and 3. Further dates begin in spring 2017.

Merritt began recording on his 50th birthday: February 9, 2015. Unlike his previous work, the lyrics on 50 Song Memoir are nonfiction—in Merritt’s words, “a mix of autobiography (bedbugs, Buddhism, buggery) and documentary (hippies, Hollywood, hyperacusis).” As he says in the album’s liner note interview with his friend, the author Daniel Handler, “I am the least autobiographical person you are likely to meet. I will probably not write any more true songs after this than I did before, but it’s been interesting working on it.”

In addition to his vocals on all 50 songs, Merritt plays more than 100 instruments on 50 Song Memoir, ranging from ukulele to piano to drum machine to abacus. In concert, the music will be played and sung by a newly expanded Magnetic Fields septet in a stage set featuring 50 years of artifacts both musical (vintage computers, reel-to-reel tape decks, newly invented instruments), and decorative (tiki bar, shag carpet, vintage magazines for the perusal of idle musicians). The seven performers each play seven different instruments, either traditional (cello, charango, clavichord) or invented in the last 50 years (Slinky guitar, Swarmatron, synthesizer). The stage extravaganza will be directed by the award-winning Jose Zayas (Love in the Time of Cholera, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter).

Stephin Merritt, guitar, ukulele, keyboards, harmonium, melodica, lead vocals
Claudia Gonson, piano, drums, percussion, vocals
Sam Davol, cello, flute
John Woo, banjo, guitar
Shirley Simms, autoharp, ukulele, vocals

Stephin Merritt
With his band the Magnetic Fields, Stephin Merritt has written, produced and recorded 10 albums, including 69 Love Songs, which was named one of the 500 best albums of all time by Rolling Stone. As well as making albums with Future Bible Heroes, the Gothic Archies, the 6ths and as a solo artist, he composed the scores for the Academy Award-nominated film Pieces of April and for Eban and Charley. He recently published his first book, 101 Two-Letter Words, illustrated by Roz Chast.

Stephin Merritt (born 1966 in New York City, United States) is a singer-songwriter. He has created and played principal roles in the following bands: The Magnetic Fields, The 6ths, The Gothic Archies, and Future Bible Heroes. He briefly used the name The Baudelaire Memorial Orchestra as an attribution for a song written for Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, entitled "Scream and Run Away". Further music was recorded for the audiobook versions of the series and is attributed to The Gothic Archies. Under his own name, he recorded and released the soundtracks to the films Eban and Charley and Pieces of April. The soundtrack to the late Nickelodeon show The Adventures of Pete & Pete featured many of his songs. He and director Chen Shi-Zheng have collaborated on three pieces of musical theatre; Orphan of Zhao (2003), Peach Blossom Fan (2004), and My Life as a Fairy Tale (2005). Select tracks from these works have been released on Nonesuch Records under the title Showtunes. Merritt is openly gay. His lyrics are known for bending and blurring the gender line; examples include the song When My Boy Walks Down The Street, sung by a male vocalist, which contains the lyric "and he's going to be my wife". He is fascinated with the undead, often making veiled or explicit references to vampires. Other frequent motifs in his lyrics include trains and railroads, the moon, dancing, eyes, and, of course, love. Merritt has a Chihuahua named Irving, after Irving Berlin. He was raised Buddhist by his counter-culture mother. He attended the progressive Massachusetts high school, The Cambridge School of Weston and briefly attended NYU before moving back to Boston. He is a smoker, and is known to light a cigarette while performing on stage. He has worked as a copy editor for Spin Magazine and Time Out New York. One of Merritt's most notable quirks is that, when interrupting his speech for thought, he does not use linguistic placeholders such as "uh" or "er" to indicate that he is not done speaking, but instead simply stops speaking. This leads many interviewers unfamiliar with this behavior to cut him off before he has finished answering a question. In a September 2005 interview conducted by The Onion's AV Club, alternative rock musician Bob Mould was reminded of an interviewer who once referred to Mould as "the most depressed man in rock." Mould's response was, "He's never met Stephin Merritt, obviously." Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.

Booklet for 50 Song Memoir