Magnetic Fields will be at Lisner Auditorium this Sunday.  So I sent a mass email to the BYT staff asking for everyone to send me their favorite song.  Enjoy.

John: I opened my apartment window on the first, real day of spring a few years back. Until that point, I had never heard the song “Washington, DC” by The Magnetic Fields. I heard it that day - 18 times.

“W-A-S-H-I-N-G-T-O-N, baby, DC!” blasted from a boombox across the street. Two young women giddily pushed their pudgy faces past their apartment window eight stories up as they sang along to the soundtrack their arms swung beneath the windowsill. The song would end. They’d set the boombox down to cheer and clap, and then yell at the pedestrians below to pay attention. Once they got their audience, one of the girls would hit the play button and the song would start again.

After a few rounds, I swung out onto my fire escape to stretch my legs into spring and to listen to the lyrics. This was the first day that season that the neighborhood could be described as bustling after waking from winter. As the foot traffic walked passed the neighboring apartment building, the girls would once again call out “Ready?” and again press play. Most times, those on the sidewalk would shake and dance while the music of The Magnetic Fields fell down around them from eight stories up.

“Washington, DC” has been one of my favorite songs since. Musically, the song is fun, even silly with its summer camp style and chanting chorus. Lyrically, the song moves past the government buildings and marble monuments of downtown and instead settles on a story of a love separated by distance. A love which finds home in the District. Its one of the few artworks describing Washington which recognizes that we are home to real people as opposed to institutions. For local ears, its clear that “Washington, DC” isn’t as much about Washington as it is about D.C.

Michael: Because it’s good and stuff.
Me: FAIL
Michael: Shut up gay 80s guy.

John Foster: Few can muster the cutting beauty of the simple lyric like Stephen Merritt. His show tune via Brill Building writing places a painful importance on just the right phrase. He is the gay counterpoint to the macho musings of David Gedge. As would be expected, given that scenario, he drapes these songs in lightweight synth pop and can barely stomach the sound of his own voice. With the 6ths, his dream of having others sing his songs was finally realized. They are all good but this one turns the sense of disappointment into the light in a sobering way as you know the person left behind will forever link their outfit and anticipation with the wave of hollowness that followed. This is sung by DC’s very own Mary Timony and you can almost “hear” Merritt smiling at her perfect rendition.

Me: This was the first Magnetic Fields song where I “got it”.  Sometimes Stephen’s music doesn’t live up to the potential of his lyrics.  Not so here.  It’s such a perfect pop song with or without his perfect words.  I’ve listened to it millions of times and never once been sick of it.  It’s timeless.  Hold on, I gotta go listen to it on my big stereo right now…

…oh god so good.

Phil: Any song that’s simultaneously about Jesus and fucking gets my vote.

Aaron: It’s tough to choose but I’d have to say one of my favorite Magnetic Fields songs is “I Don’t Wanna Get Over You,” the 6th of 69 Love Songs. Musically, I love the trick Merritt uses repeatedly on this album: the tape-slowed vocals. The falsified bass range gives the uber-melodramatic lyrics a purposefully creepified faux-melancholy, and facilitates the tongue-in-cheek indictment of an emotional predicament the narrator, and surely all of us have found ourselves in at some point.

Svetlana: This is the first Magnetic Fields song I ever heard. I was a latecomer to it all, and even this happened in a roundabout way. In 2005, I received my first ever Cale Holiday Mix (a historic moment in soon-to-be BYT history, if there ever was one) and it had the !!! cover of this jam on it. And frankly, the title was a little too…I don’t know…obvious so I almost skipped through it. But I didn’t and I loved it, and then Wikipedia’d it and discovered its Stephin Merrit origins.
And I love the original too now.
Listen to them both.
Aside from that, because I know Cale will mention Strange Powers already, I vote for this charmer as well.

Alyssa: I have such a connection with all of their songs, so it is super hard to choose. But. “If You Don’t Cry” has this simple, delicate melody juxtaposed with some of the most painfully true lyrics in a chorus, ever…the Fields draw an obvious conclusion here that we all view as truth in the back of our minds but would never admit out loud. “If you don’t cry, it isn’t love. If you don’t cry, then you just don’t feel it deep enough.” So simple, yet so powerful.

Morgan: I feel like this is probably a popular favorite, but I just L-O-V-E the line “when the wind is in your hair you laugh like a little girl.” also, it reminds me of this one summer where my sister and I did nothing but drive around and listen to music, and this song in particular led to a lot of interpretive car dancing.

Dave: “Reno Dakota”, from 69 Love Songs (Vol. 1) is my favorite Magnetic Fields song. Being a print design nerd, the fact that “Pantone 292″ is mentioned gets serious bonus points. Hands down, my favorite 1 minute song.

Matt Siblo: I chose “I Don’t Really Love You Anymore” on I. Not only do the breezy strings arrangements help to soften the harsh sentiment of its narrator but Merritt’s lyrical tone manages to capture a sense of fragility and denial that come along with the title’s declaration or rationalization, whichever the case may be. In this case, it seems like there’s a little bit of truth in both.

Patrick: The fall of sophomore year at University of Maryland was an incredible time for me. I shared a dorm with my friend John. Before he started skipping classes and taking unannounced trips to Philly, we spent a lot of time skateboarding or talking about music while drinking very strong coffee. Among the many groups that he introduced me to was The Magnetic Fields.

“69 Love Songs” was one of his favorite albums at the time, and it seemed as though Disc 2 was constantly in rotation in our crowded little room. The song that I liked the most was “Papa Was a Rodeo.” At the time, my mind wasn’t clouded with thoughts of microphone placement or analog vs. digital, so I was able to appreciate the song without intellectualizing the production values too much. And what lyrics!

Papa was a rodeo - Mama was a rock’n'roll band
I could play guitar and rope a steer before I learned to stand
Home was anywhere with diesel gas - Love was a trucker’s hand
Never stuck around long enough for a one night stand
Before you kiss me you should know
Papa was a rodeo

While it does seem a bit far-fetched, I think a lot of us have been in a situation where we’ve warned a potential lover about our short comings. Stephen Merritt’s lyrics on this song are so precise, but a little bit bawdy. Why this man isn’t down in Tennessee writing songs for country singers, I have no idea.

Matthew: Tucked away in the middle of 69 Love Songs (track #38 to be exact), this whimsical electro-pop gem finds Stephen Merritt putting a gender-bending spin on the traditional damsel-in-distress story as guest vocalist Dudley Klute is given the task of singing lyrics like, “The princess there is me, decked out like a Christmas tree.”

Peter: On the best MF album, this is the best song because it is simply written but with enough archaic songwriting flourishes (like the bridge starting with the pre-resolving chord of the chorus) to keep it interesting, and perfectly captures the themes of Get Lost at the perfect moment: getting old, being a lonely dancing machine, floating, etc., and right as you think its just a regular cheesy love song he throws in the huge sarcastic mystical number 777 and the song hits this weird out-of-key chord and then comes back and is beautuful again but suddenly unsettlingly so. Also, fucking UKES RULE.

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Ok, your turn:

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