For all of the obvious pitfalls of the streaming era, having much of music history at our fingertips has given us the gift of being able to be late to the party. Every time some Imogen Heap song from the early aughts goes viral on TikTok or there's a Kate Bush "Running Up That Hill"-type renaissance from a TV placement, it tends to induce a lot of groans, but honesty? It's really cool to watch older music find new audiences, especially in an industry that tends to give art short life cycles with the insistent pressure for continuous output.
This is all to say that I wasn't around for the heyday of the Magnetic Fields and 69 Love Songs; you'll have to forgive me for having been four years old when it was released in 1999. Having only come to know this cult-beloved record in recent years, hearing it live was never an experience I thought I'd have — but thanks to 25th anniversary tour celebrations, I got to hear the first 35 songs in the jam-packed Queen Elizabeth Theatre last night.
There's something quite unassuming and unpretentious about a band setting out to just sit on stage and play through the tracks of (half of a three-volume concept) album in order. Singer-songwriter Stephin Merritt opened the show by introducing the straightforward premise, quipping about an overzealous audience member who shouted, "69! Woo!" in response to him saying the album title, "I'll have what she's having."
Otherwise, the chatter in between songs was limited, save for Merritt's short preambles designating certain tracks as among the Magnetic Fields' animal, anatomical parts, number, or plant songs. At one point, singer/ukulele player Shirley Simms did tell a "Catholic joke," because it's lent. Merritt, Simms and fellow founding member Sam Davol on cello sat comfortably in the round with newer band lineup additions Chris Ewen (keys) and Anthony Kaczynski (vocals/guitar), creating a cozy atmosphere that also made the crowd feel comfortable about the fact that we were all sitting.
The coziness — and reality of being a longtime touring band — was further emphasized by several cups of tea alongside the music stands on stage, as well as the occasional tissue. While that was for more unavoidable sinus difficulties, I did feel tears begin to well in my eyes at multiple points in the night as the circumstance continued to dawn on me: there I was, seeing an album I love that was before my time live, sitting next to a sweet-lovin' man. Talk about being "The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side."
For the uninitiated, it's hard to explain exactly what it is about 69 Love Songs that feels so special and enduring. I think I've always learned more about love from songs about heartbreak than quote-unquote love songs, which often take the daunting task overly seriously and end up feeling stifled by their desire to capture a fleeting, mercurial mystery we as a species can still only shrug about. As its title probably suggests, this record leans into the base-desire ridiculousness of love, with the double-animal metaphor in the hook of "A Chicken with Its Head Cut Off" or only really being able to compare a pretty girl to a pretty girl on "A Pretty Girl Is Like."
That's not to say there aren't moments of profound depth, either, and that's the delicate balance the Magnetic Fields strike so well. Even on "A Chicken with Its Head Cut Off," Merritt surmises, "We don't have to be anything so unreal / Let's just be lovers," while purest odes to love like "The Book of Love" still have the acknowledgement that the transcendental is also accompanied by the really dumb, much like the divine with the asinine on the theatrical "Love Is Like Jazz," which brought some "improvisational" comedy to the stage when Davol suddenly slipped off into the wings to drag out a cleaning cart, pretending to mop the floor near Merritt's post.
There have been plenty of poetic waxings on Merritt's genius as a writer that I need not add to, but I'd be remiss not to say how remarkable it was to hear his bass tessitura fill the QET with such resonance, enveloping even those seated all the way at the back of the room. His time-preserved voice didn't miss a note. While it seemed to take longer for Simms's to get balanced in the mix in the same way, she deftly swapped from harmonies to lead and back again with ease, while Kaczynski brought the house down with the long held note at the end of "The Luckiest Guy" and taking to his feet to close the show with "Promises of Eternity."
It's a fitting note to end on, speaking to both the overdrawn 30-minute intermission after the end of the first volume (that being said, standing in the line for the women's washroom took up most of the time) and the timelessness of the Magnetic Fields' goofy theses on love, transcendently simple melodies and beautifully ramshackle orchestration.
We're all still much too young to know the secrets, but these songs' treatment of them continues to cut to the core of our fumbling through the dark toward someone shaped like home. There's still 34 more attempts to put it into words to be had tonight, with the band going back on their promise from "I Think I Need a New Heart" and staying to say "happy anniversary."