Las eliminadas son:
Con 10 votos:
2.13 WORLD LOVE
"'From Tokyo to Soweto / viva la musica pop'
In the 69 Love Songs booklet, Stephin Merritt mocks the idea that Paul Simon and David Byrne are criticised for using non-western sources in their music: "I fail to see how that's exploitative in any way". (By grouping these two together, he appears to ignore the specific circumstances of the anti-apartheid movement's cultural boycott of South Africa at the time of Paul Simon's Graceland.)
World Love is a pastiche of Paul Simon's pastiche. "
Con 7 votos:
1.4 A CHICKEN WITH ITS HEAD CUT OFF
"Of which Stephin Merritt says, "There's not that many clichés left to be used as titles of country songs. So I was jokingly scraping the bottom of the barrel" (in the 69 Love Songs booklet).
'Well my heart's running round / like a chicken with its head cut off... / The poor thing's blind as a bat / getting up, falling down, getting up'
The metaphor spawns a series of tautologies: a heart without a head, blind as a bat."
2.3 WHEN MY BOY WALKS DOWN THE STREET
"In the 69 Love Songs booklet, Stephin Merritt says When My Boy Walks Down The Street is "more like the Jesus and Mary Chain". Which is almost true of the instrumental production, but the Jesus and Mary Chain never sang like this. The vocal sounds more like the Shangri-Las.
LD Beghtol writes that, "This song is also heavily influenced by The Three O'Clock, an LA 'paisley underground' band Stephin and Claudia loved in the 80s, whose terrific first two albums have just recently been released on CD".
Also from the booklet: Daniel Handler: "I think there will be people who hear this song think that '...and he's going to be my wife' is a gay marriage statement". Stephin Merritt: "Well, I suppose it is".
'Everyone thinks he's Petula'
A reference to Petula Clark, who is pictured with Claudia Gonson in the 69 Love Songs booklet. "
2.18 EPITAPH FOR MY HEART
"Apparently the introduction to this song ("Caution: to prevent electric shock / do not remove cover / No user-serviceable parts inside / Refer servicing to qualified / service personnel") was initially a song in its own right, called Epitaph For My Heart, but Stephin Merritt decided to write another song with the same title since he was concerned that there were already enough very short songs on the album.
LD Beghtol writes:
Though Stephin did all the vocals on the recording, live it was always so much fun for Claudia and me to get to sing the "Caution! Caution! Caution!" madrigal introâ¦
'Who'll take its ashes and, singing, fling / them from the top of the Brill Building'
Between the 1930s and the 1960s, the Brill Building housed up to 165 music businesses, including songwriters, publishers and record labels. In the period before the rise of writer-performers (e.g. Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Beach Boys), the songwriting teams in the Brill Building were pre-eminent in producing hits. These teams included Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, and Burt Bacharach and Hal David.
In the 69 Love Songs booklet, Stephin Merritt mentions how much he enjoys rhyming consecutive syllables (cf. Why I Cry from The Magnetic Fields' album Get Lost)."
3.3 BUSBY BERKELEY DREAMS
"Busby Berkeley (1895-1976) orchestrated dance sequences for film that render movement of the human body, usually in large ensembles, as geometrical abstracts. He worked â as director, choreographer or musical numbers creator â on 53 films between 1930 and 1962. Earlier he had worked on Broadway, with credits including A Connecticut Yankee by Rodgers & Hart (cf. How Fucking Romantic). The nature of his work meant that it straddled mainstream and experimentalism , which also includes animated sequences from some his films).
Busby Berkeley is also mentioned in The Way You Say Good-Night. In the 69 Love Songs booklet, Stephin Merritt says that he is "certainly a model for this over-the-top album, where excess is the theme for this record".
The song was arranged by Claudia Gonson, and Stephin suggests that the piano is the waking life and the cello is the dream life.
'The tears have stained all the pages / of my True Romance magazines'
True Romance magazine is still going."
Con 6 votos:
1.5 RENO DAKOTA
"Reno Dakota is a documetary film-maker. He is included on the 'Thanks' credits for the album, presumably for allowing this use of his name â the song now being much more widely known than him or his work.
'It's making me blue / Pantone 292'
Pantone® 292 is known as 'bluebird' or sometimes 'cornflower blue'. There are not any other blues with Pantone numbers ending it 'two' that would maintain the rhyme scheme. Stephin has also given the name Carolyn Eve Green to Pantone 7498 possibly a privilege extended to him in recognition of previous product placement.
'Reno Dakota I'm no Nino Rota / I don't know the score'
Nino Rota (1911-1979) was a soundtrack composer who enjoyed a long partnership with film-maker Federico Fellini, as well as writing some of the music for The Godfather films. Rota's credits include the Fellini film 8½, to which there is a reference in Promises of Eternity.
'Reno that's just a ruse / Do not play fast and loose'
This is one of many songwriter jokes on the album, as this couplet plays fast and loose with the rhyme scheme â 'ruse' and 'loose' being a false rhyme (note: this is based on UK English pronunciation, where 'ruse' rhymes with 'choose', but not 'moose' â speakers of US English, please correct this if standard pronunciation is different in America)."
2.6 GRAND CANYON
"'If I was Paul Bunyan / I'd carry you so far away'
Paul Bunyan is a giant lumberjack from North American folklore, whose travels led him to encounter inter alia a purple ox, enormous ants, and he smoked a giant pipe. According to the legend, he created the Grand Canyon by dragging his axe behind him. "
Con 5 votos:
2.14 WASHINGTON, D.C.
"In a discussion of the cheerleader pop songs in the 69 Love Songs booklet, Stephin Merritt cites one of the Bay City Rollers' smaller hits, Saturday Night, as a precedent for Washington, D.C."
