 Genius Lyrics
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The Magnetic Fields – A Chicken with Its Head Cut Off
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Track 4 in the first volume of 69 Love Songs features Stephin Merritt and the band playing a subtle country ditty about a man with a wandering heart.
Illustration by Tom
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The Magnetic Fields – Abigail, Belle of Kilronan
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[Click here to read Stephin's account of the making of "Abigail, Belle of Kilronan"] / [Verse 1] / Abigail, can you feel my heart in the palm of your hand? / And do you understand
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The Magnetic Fields – Roses
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Shockingly sparse, track 1 from volume two of 69 Love Songs is a good piece of advice wrapped in a solitary man’s trembling vocal.
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The Magnetic Fields – Washington, D.C.
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[Hook] / W-A-S-H-I-N-G-T-O-N, baby, D.C / W-A-S-H-I-N-G-T-O-N, baby, D.C / [Verse 1] / Washington, D.C., it's paradise to me / It's not because it is the grand old seat / Of
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The Magnetic Fields – Strange Eyes
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An extended metaphor about an ex-lover’s blue eyes.
Ordinarily in writing love songs you try not to specify eye color, to make it more universal. This hits you over the head with
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The Magnetic Fields – Love Is Like a Bottle of Gin
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It makes you blind, it does you in / It makes you think you're pretty tough / It makes you prone to crime and sin / It makes you say things off the cuff / It's very small and made
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The Magnetic Fields – I Don't Want to Get Over You
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“I Don’t Want to Get Over You” is the much-beloved track 6 from Vol. 1 of The Magnetic Fields’s 69 Love Songs. Featuring a full band, Merritt sings lyrics that nail the sensation
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The Magnetic Fields – I Think I Need a New Heart
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“I Think I Need a New Heart” is track 11 on the first volume of The Magnetic Fields’s 69 Love Songs. Like an argument put into song, the instrumentation is like a country song with
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The Magnetic Fields – The Cactus Where Your Heart Should Be
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Many of the songs on 69 Love Songs feature very sparse or limited instrumentation. Track 10 of volume one is such an example. Songwriter Stephin Merritt sings a somber poem over
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The Magnetic Fields – Love is Like Jazz
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“Love is Like Jazz” is a genre experiment, parodying a beatnik style with hand drums, stand-up bass and accordion provided by writer Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket).
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The Magnetic Fields – Meaningless
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Meaningless? / You mean it's all been meaningless? / Every whisper and caress? / Yes, yes, yes, it was totally meaningless / Meaningless / Like when two fireflies fluoresce / Just
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The Magnetic Fields – Time Enough for Rocking When We’re Old
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On one of the lowest vocal performance of Stephin Merritt, he simply says that he will always be by his/her lover side (even in the afterlife), but tonight he’d rather go dancing
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The Magnetic Fields – Boa Constrictor
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Track 18 of volume one of The Magnetic Fields’s 69 Love Songs is another showcase for Shirley Simms, the on-again off-again vocalist for the band. She sings over an intricate
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The Magnetic Fields – For We Are the King of the Boudoir
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On 69 Love Songs, Merritt worked in a remarkable breadth of musical styles; this track is a harpsichord-driven post-Baroque art song, of the sort that might have been composed by
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The Magnetic Fields – Fido, Your Leash Is Too Long
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“Fido” is a classic, cliché name for a dog, dating back to ancient Rome. It means “Faithful” and in fact the most famous Fido was famous for his loyalty.
However, to have a long
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The Magnetic Fields – Reno Dakota
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Reno Dakota is track 5 of the first volume of The Magnetic Fields’s 69 Love Songs. Claudia Gonson sings these brilliant lyrics over a sole banjo.
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The Magnetic Fields – When My Boy Walks Down the Street
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“When My Boy Walks Down the Street” is the third track on the second volume of The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs. The song is characterized by upbeat, driving verses and chorus
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The Magnetic Fields – Asleep and Dreaming
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I've seen you laugh at nothing at all / I've seen you sadly weeping / The sweetest thing I ever saw / Was you asleep and dreaming / Well, you may not be beautiful / But it's not
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The Magnetic Fields – Blue You
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The moon was singing the blues / The stars in the sky harmonized singing it too / And I, far below was singing low and slow for you / And I know all the world was singing the blues
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The Magnetic Fields – Queen of the Savages
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My girl is the queen of the savages / She don't know the modern world and its ravages / Instead of money she's got yams and cabbages / She lives in a dome / I don't care if I never
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The Magnetic Fields – Boa Constrictor
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Track 18 of volume one of The Magnetic Fields’s 69 Love Songs is another showcase for Shirley Simms, the on-again off-again vocalist for the band. She sings over an intricate
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The Magnetic Fields – Bitter Tears
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[Chorus] / Bitter tears keep me goin' / Through the years, freely flowin' / What have you done? / Only a gun could stop these bitter tears / [Verse 1] / The endless streets I walk
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The Magnetic Fields – Epitaph for My Heart
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"Caution, to prevent electric shock / Do not remove cover / No user-serviceable parts inside / Refer servicing to qualified / Service personnel" / Let this be the epitaph for my
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The Magnetic Fields – Love in the Shadows
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[Verse 1] / The woman with no nose / I know where she goes / The old guy with the gold eye / We go back, he and I / Don't smile / We don't do that here, baby / [Chorus] / Love in
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The Magnetic Fields – If You Don't Cry
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[Verse 1] / Softly the crystals falling on 17th Street / Do their dance and die and are gone / Millions of crystal balls roll around your feet / Nothing gets done / [Pre-Chorus 1
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The Magnetic Fields – Very Funny
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Everybody knows but me / When you go where you shouldn't be / Everybody knows but me / Where you go when you're feeling free / Everybody knows but me / So you go there for a laugh
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The Magnetic Fields – It's a Crime
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[Chorus] / It's a crime to fall in love / Heart and mind, and soul in love / It's a crime to fall in love / So hard, so hard / [Verse 1] / I shouldn't have bothered, 'cause you're
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The Magnetic Fields – I Shatter
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Bang, there was you / Too gold, too blue / You took the truth / I cried, you flew / [Chorus] / You called me mad (And I am mad) / As a hatter / Some fall in love (Some fall in love
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The Magnetic Fields – My Only Friend
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He’s lost his love, so he’s drowning his sorrows in sad Billie Holiday songs. Possibly not the wisest move.
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The Magnetic Fields – The Night You Can't Remember
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Before you left your garrison / You'd had a drink, maybe two / You don't remember Paris, hon / But it remembers you / It's true, we flew to Paris, dear / Aboard an Army jet / The
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The Magnetic Fields – The Things We Did and Didn’t Do
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Ending off volume one of 69 Love Songs is a ballad of suddenly reminiscing over a past relationship. Track 23 has no percussion but a full performance from the group with
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The Magnetic Fields – Acoustic Guitar
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Acoustic guitar, I'm gonna make you a star / Get your picture all over the world / Acoustic guitar, you can have your own car / Just bring me back my girl / She always loved the
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The Magnetic Fields – Xylophone Track
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To my dear, dear mother / I leave my only shoes / To my dear, dear mother / I leave my only shoes / By the time you read this / I will have died of the blues / Scream, little choo-
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The Magnetic Fields – Grand Canyon
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A song about losing love with someone and trying to salvage it. The narrator could change for his partner, but he knows that would be inauthentic.
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The Magnetic Fields – Parades Go By
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[Verse 1] / I'll linger here / Your ring upon my finger, dear / And sing till dawn / A song of you and me and what and why / For time is all / I have to keep between these walls
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The Magnetic Fields – Come Back from San Francisco
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“Come Back from San Francisco” is a desperate lament from The Magnetic Fields, an art form composer Stephin Merritt frequents.
Shirley Simms sings this track to a man from the
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The Magnetic Fields – Underwear
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A pretty girl in her underwear / A pretty girl in her underwear / If there's anything better in this world / Who cares / [Chorus] / La mort, c'est la mort / Mais l'amour, c'est l'
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The Magnetic Fields – Nothing Matters When We're Dancing
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The sweet “Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing” is track 21 on The Magnetic Fields’s 69 Love Songs, Volume 1. Stephin Merritt sings a soft ballad over ukelele and dimmed background
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The Magnetic Fields – Experimental Music Love
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[Repeated and overlapping 23 times] / Experimental music love
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