Dedicated, As I Am, To Art

The Magnetic Fields @ The Town Hall, 2/22/2008
California Girls / I Don’t Believe You / All My Little Words / Come Back To San Francisco / Old Fools / Xavier Says / Walking My Gargoyle / Too Drunk To Dream / Til The Bitter End / The Night You Can’t Remember / I Thought You Were My Boyfriend / Water Torture // Lovers From The Moon / I Wish I Had An Evil Twin / Give Me Back My Dreams / Grand Canyon / Papa Was A Rodeo / Drive On, Driver / The Nun’s Litany / The Tiny Goat / Smoke And Mirrors / Zombie Boy /// Three-Way / Take Ecstasy With Me / The Book Of Love

Despite the loud sound of their most recent album, the Magnetic Fields remain an extraordinarily mannered live act. Their concerts are seated recitals, and are almost completely devoid of rock show conventions. Though some may grumble about a lack of power and physicality, I think this plays to the strengths of Stephin Merritt’s songs, and his ensemble. In this context, the audience have no choice but to focus all of their attention on the nuances of the melodies and the lyrics. Even without the sharp between-song banter (mainly provided by the lovely Claudia Gonson), the emphasis was consistently placed on the wit of Merritt’s words, and so the feeling of the show was closer to that of a musical revue or a comedy performance than any sort of indie rock or singer-songwriter gig.

The Magnetic Fields “The Nun’s Litany (Live on Fair Game, 2/20/2008)” – Two days earlier, Stephin Merritt performed a short session for Fair Game, which will air later this week. This isn’t exactly how the song sounded in concert — here, he’s accompanied only by his ukulele, and in the show he played a bouzouki and was assisted by at least two other players — but the important thing is that he’s singing the song, and not Shirley Simms, though she sang on several other tunes. The humor becomes more obvious — it’s pretty hilarious to imagine the small, Eeyore-ish Merritt as a Playboy bunny — but the sadness of the song is deepened. Whereas Simms’ version comes across as a tongue-in-cheek interior monologue of a desperate single girl, Merritt’s take sounds like a gay man who longs for the options of that desperate single girl, wishing that it could be so easy to attract the attention of handsome men. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)