69 Love Songs, Volume Two

The second volume of The Magnetic Fields' towering achievement 69 Love Songs. Much of the genre-hopping happens in this third, from jazz with “Love is Like Jazz,” to world music with “World Love,” to cheerleader music (?) with “Washington, D.C.”. A great deal of the songs on here seem to be little more than sketches, such as “Roses” and “Very Funny,” but there are some genuine highlights here: “Grand Canyon” and “Papa Was a Rodeo” will melt even the coldest of hearts. And there’s always Merritt’s inimitable songwriting to hold you over. Take this verse from “(Crazy for You But) Not That Crazy”:

I treated you like radium, I treated you like God
You were my glass menagerie, did you not find that odd?
I dwelt within and went without and broke my virgin flesh
I performed acts of devotion as if you were Ganesh

The project as a whole was originally inspired by Charles Ives’s songbook of 114 songs, and was intended to be a revue of 100 songs. However, Merritt realized that nobody would sit through 100 songs, so he settled for the much more evocative 69. The album was released in 1999 on Merge Records.