Con 5 votos:
1.14 HOW FUCKING ROMANTIC
"The 69 Love Songs booklet explains that this song was first conceived for Ute Lemper and then for Diamanda Galás â with an eye on The 6ths album Hyacinths and Thistles â though neither ever recorded the song.
LD Beghtol writes, "We all longed to sing this one, but Dudley got the honor. What a great song!"
'Play another charming / Rodgers & Hart tune'
Richard Rodgers (composer) and Lorenz Hart (lyricist) collaborated on 29 musicals, and contributed songs to 12 films, writing more than four shows a year at the peak of their productivity. The partnership ran from 1919 until the death of Hart in 1943: he allegedly "drank himself to death, tormented by his gnomish appearance and unable to accept his own homosexuality". Rodgers continued to write musicals with Oscar Hammerstein II, and then with other lyricists after Hammerstein's death.
Some link Hart's homosexuality with his lyrics, which "abound with expressions of frustrated romance, isolated courtship and unconventional affection". "
1.18 BOA CONSTRICTOR
"In the 69 Love Songs booklet, Stephin Merritt comments that he asked Shirley Simms to sing Boa Constrictor rather than singing it himself, "Because I always sound like love has wrapped around my heart like a boa constrictor. She doesn't." (cf. his similar comments about I Don't Want to Get Over You.)
"I think of the boa constrictor in The Little Prince," he continues for no apparent reason."
3.9 WI' NAE WEE BAIRN YE'LL ME BEGET
"Wi' Nae Wee Bairn Ye'll Me Beget draws on the Scottish folksong of Robert 'Rabbie' Burns, the Bard of Scotland. In the 69 Love Songs booklet, Stephin Merritt says he is a fan of the Jean Redpath sings Robert Burns series, which runs to seven volumes.
Like Absolutely Cuckoo, Wi' Nae Wee Bairn Ye'll Me Beget has two parts, both of which are sung by Stephin Merritt on the album. In live performance Stephin and Claudia sing the refrain together ('Wi' nae wee bairn ye'll me beget / Untwinkle, little ee / My ainly pang'll be regret / A maiden I will dee') but alternate in singing the lines in each verse, which brings out the dynamic of the song in sharper relief.
For anyone unfamiliar with Scottish dialect, 'Wi' Nae Wee Bairn Ye'll Me Beget' translates as 'With no small child you will me beget (i.e. sire)'. The 'shape-shifting' theme of the lyric ('Well I'll turn into a...') is common to many folk traditions. A widely known instance (since Disney did a film of it) is the shapechanging battle between Madam Mym and Merlin in T H White's The Sword in the Stone.
Another is the song Two Magicians, one of the Child Ballads, recorded by Steeleye Span among others, which also shares the theme of a maiden protecting her virginity, and from which Wi' Nae Wee Bairn Ye'll Me Beget appears to be derived:
You never shall have my maidenhead
That I have kept so long!
I'd rather die a maid, aye, and then she said,
And be buried all in my grave
In Wi' Nae Wee Bairn Ye'll Me Beget, the 'little ee' and 'a maiden I will dee' (i.e. die) lines may be true to the phonetic spirit of many Scots ballads, but stretch the 'letter' of dialect pronounciation. "
Con 4 votos:
1.19 A PRETTY GIRL IS LIKE...
"The song is a protest-cum-homage to Irving Berlinâs song A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody.
Allegedly Stephin Merritt had been reading Ulysses, and considering how writers objectify women in metaphors. In the lyrics, he celebrates, mocks, and critiques song similes, adopting "an exaggeratedly sexist, male point of view. It's a lot of baggage for one song," he acknowledges, "but that's part of why it's funny".
LD Beghtol adds:
When I first heard this, I was sure people would attack Stephin for being sexist, which of course neither he nor the song is at all. Also the song Queen of the Savages gave me pause. Happily everyone got the jokes and no-one so far as we know was offended.
Stephin cites surrealist poetry as one of his 'touchstones' for his wilder metaphors such as 'A pretty girl is like a minstrel show'. (The Magnetic Fields took their name from André Breton and Philippe Soupaultâs Les Champs Magnetiques, though Stephin says that this is "not a reference in the sense that it helps people understand the band better".)"
3.17 TWO KINDS OF PEOPLE
"Two Kinds Of People features another heavily treated vocal from Stephin Merritt. In live performances, Stephin and Claudia Gonson sing the song together, and the lines that are back in the mix on the album are sung away from the microphone.
'There are two kinds of people: a) my love and I; b) other'
The song is a kind of solipsism for two. "
HabÃa un empate con 4 votos pero se ha salvado Asleep and Dreaming por no haber recibido ningún voto en las rondas anteriores mientras que las otras dos sÃ.
