LD Beghtol - The Magnetic Fields 69 Love Songs

69 Love Songs

You must always believe that life is as extraordinary as music says it is.

Rebecca West

THE FOUNTAIN OVERFLOWS (1956)

Also available in this series:

Dusty in Memphis
by Warren Zanes

Forever Changes
by Andrew Hultkrans

Harvest by Sam Inglis

The Kinks Are the
Village Green Preservation Society
by Andy Miller

Meat Is Murder by Joe Pernice

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn by
John Cavanagh

Abba Gold
by Elisabeth Vincentelli

Electric Ladyland
by John Perry

Unknown Pleasures
by Chris Ott

Sign O the Times
by Michaelangelo Matos

The Velvet Underground and Nico
by Joe Harvard

Let It Be by Steve Matteo

Live at the Apollo
by Douglas Wolk

Aqualung
by Allan Moore

OK Computer by Dai Griffiths

Let It Be by Colin Meloy

Led Zeppelin IV by Erik Davis

Armed Forces
by Franklin Bruno

Exile on Main Street
by Bill Janovitz
Grace by Daphne Brooks

Murmur by J. Niimi

Pet Sounds by Jim Fusilli

Ramones by Nicholas Rombes

Endtroducing...
by Eliot Wilder

Kick 33thirdlogoOut the Jams
by Don McLeese

Low by Hugo Wilcken

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
by Kim Cooper

Music from Big Pink
by John Niven

Pauls Boutique
by Dan LeRoy

Doolittle by Ben Sisario

Theres a Riot Goin On
by Miles Marshall Lewis

Stone Roses
by Alex Green

Highway 61 Revisited
by Mark Polizzotti

Loveless by Mike McGonigal

Bee Thousand
by Marc Woodsworth

The Who Sell Out
by John Dougan

Court and Spark
by Sean Nelson

Forthcoming in this series:

The Notorious Byrd Brothers by Ric Menck
Daydream Nation by Matthew Stearns
Peoples Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm by Shawn Taylor
Use Your Illusion I & II by Eric Weisbard
Songs in the Key of Life by Zeth Lundy
and many more...

For reviews of individual titles in the series, please visit
www.continuumbooks.com and 33third.blogspot.com

A field guide

LD Beghtol

With an introduction
by Ken Emerson

2010

The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc
80 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038

The Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd
The Tower Building, 11 York Road
London SE1 7NX

www.continuumbooks.com

Copyright 2006 by LD Beghtol,
except for: Word Love 2006 John DeRosa, and
Groping an Elephant 2006 Ken Emerson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the
written permission of the publishers or their agents.

Printed in The United States of America by Thomson-Shore, Inc

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Beghtol, LD.
69 love songs : a field guide / LD Beghtol.
p. cm.
eISBN-13: 978-1-4411-3063-1
1. Magnetic Fields (Musical group). 69 love songs.
2. Rock music19912000History and criticism.
3. Popular music19912000History and criticism.
I. Title. II. Title: Sixty-nine love songs.
ML421.M34B44 2006
782.42l660922dc22
2006031629

For Andrew Friedman, music lover

I stick because/Im stuck because... by Steve Santore (2006)

by Ken Emerson

[INTRODUCTION]

by Ken Emerson

Why am I playing straight man to Stephin Merritt and his Boswell, LD Beghtol? Because they say nice things about my books and flattery will get you everywhere. But, far more important, because 69 Love Songs is so singular and audacious an accomplishment. Sheer bulk is the least of it. Okay, size matters, but whats even more impressive is how light on its feet the Magnetic Fields three-CD set is, how Merritts music charms as much as it challenges listeners while it turns genres, genders and emotions inside out. Like the elephant the blind men grope in the Indian parable, 69 Love Songs is so vast and various that it cries out for the voluminous exegesis that Beghtol provides. Pulling a trunk and grabbing an ear, he reports that Stephins mirror of to Marguerite Durasthat he lets fly like so many Cupids darts. Because Merritt and he understand the history of popular music, and because, as gay men, they stand, inevitably even if ever so slightly, outside that history, they know that rock is but one of many forms of popular music, as transitory and eternal as the turkey trot or hip hop. Merritts plinking ukulele pokes fun at rocks macho guitars. Nearly all of Beghtols assessments are astute, though surely he exaggerates when he asserts that Merritt is almost without peer or precedent, except for Stephen Sondheim and Tom Lehrer, in contemporary music. Cynical, sentimental and super-self-conscious, Merritt is very much in the tradition of Bobby Darin, David Bowie, Brian Ferry and David Byrne as he continually questions authenticity and dares himself as well as his listeners toArt is by turns mod Max Factor compact, fun-house looking glass, mythic reflecting pool and interrogation room two-way glazing. Stroking a tusk and boggled by those tree-trunk legs, he tries again: Part manifesto, part publicity stunt, part limited-edition objet... The sum of his parts does ample justice to Merritts whole. As it bounds from Robert Burns to the Psychedelic Furs, from the distinction between a milliner and a hatter to Michigans state motto to Charos chops on flamenco guitar, A Field Guide is as encyclopedic, illuminating, obscurantist, hilarious and indulgent as 69 Love Songs. Call it part Higher Criticism, part Trivial Pursuit. Beghtols characterizations of folk music, blues, jazz, punk rock and other genres that Merritt and he disesteem are razor-sharp, and so are the quotations of everyone from Irving Berlin take his songs seriously. And if youre looking for antecedents to 69 Love Songs, how about the Turtles 1968 album, The Battle of the Bands? Merritt and Beghtol would love the goofy hula and punning of Im Chief Kamanawanalea.... Although