Fancy A Quickie?

Billions laughed and no one cried
The day the politicians died
Celebrations spread worldwide
The day the politicians died
Even their own mothers
Their own husbands and wives
Said, "now all men are brothers"
Let's get on with our lives    (The Day The Politicians Died)


She's got evil rhythm
It's the hip new hypnotithm
She's got evil rhythm
It's even worse than communithm    (Evil Rhythm)

How to start with Magnetic Fields Quickies? Stephen Merritt’s response to the events of 2020 was to bash out 29 songs varying between 17 seconds and 2:35, it both chimed with our accelerated times and flew in the face of the standard artistic response of sitting back and considering these end times excruciatingly deeply.

As with every Magnetic Fields release Merritt mixes up equal portions of funny, flippant, filthy and flashes of real feeling and emotion, the latter often in songs that contain a lot of the first three on this list. He has a formalist approach to songwriting which makes a lot of his music sound like offcuts from a very oddball musical in a smorgasbord of styles and he has an admirable ability to tell a story in a line, or two, reminding me heavily of Richard Brautigan* and sometimes even Ogden Nash rather than another lyricist.

Like most folk 69 Love Songs was my introduction to the Magnetic Fields, that’s a story for another day but the sheer panoply of songs and styles just awed and floored me. Originally conceived a drag revue 69 Love Songs was fabulously pansexual in approach, adding whole other levels to the lyrics sung my Merritt and his helpers, I am very happy to report Quickies dials up the same vibes immediately.

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Even if I had never heard of Magnetic Fields I would have bought Quickies on spec regardless, pink vinyl, short songs and some of the best song titles I’d seen in an age:- You’ve Got A Friend In Beelzebub, Kraftwerk In A Blackout, When The Brat Upstairs Got A Drum Kit, Bathroom Quickie, The Biggest Tits In History …

In short something for everyone.

My personal favourites here, well there’s about 24 of them but I’ll cut it down a touch.

I like the rudies, ‘The Biggest Tits In History’ particularly so – hey it’s about birds from the family Paridae, honest. The toilet-adjacent sex in ‘Bathroom Quickie’ and the sheer filth of ‘I Wish I Were A prostitute Again’.

Part of Magnetic Fields charm for me are the Trojan horseplay of a lot of the lyrics. I really enjoy the way ‘When the Brat Upstairs Got A Drumkit’ is about being so loved up you and your paramour don’t notice, even when she gets into ska. ‘(I Want To Join A) Biker Gang’ is funny, but is about wanting to belong to something/someone too. Like I said Merritt is able to lace the unlikeliest scenarios with yearning at times.

Other favourites include the Cab Calloway-tastic ‘Evil Rhythm’ and the disarmingly gorgeous ‘Come, Life, Shaker Life!’ a plea for purity and something better**. Add in the winning ‘The Best Cup Of Coffee In Tennessee’ and the sadness undercutting ‘Favorite Bar’^ adds layers. He even has fun mimicking Mark Lanegan on ‘Love Gone Wrong’.

My very favourite is ‘My Stupid Boyfriend’ where Merritt and Claudia Gonson trade lines about their respective lovers’ shortcomings, trading gender seamlessly along the way. It’s clever, fun and musically great.

It should be borne in mind that the Magnetic Fields are not a one-man band at all, Merritt is the lyricist and force of nature here, but is very ably assisted on a number of interesting instruments by an eight-strong crew, the most prominent of which to me are John Woo on guitar, Claudia Gonson and Shirley Simms. Everyone involved appears to be multi-instrumental and multi-talented.

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Quickies is a great introduction to the Magnetic Fields, the songs are less well-developed than some of their releases but quirkier and charmingly haphazard in others.

Plus I love LP’s of short songs, if you’re not fussed on the one you’re listening to, hey there’ll be another one along in 60 seconds.

Fancy a quickie?

1110 Down.

PS: The original release of Quickies was as a box set of 5×7″ singles, for sheer user convenience I waited for this release instead, plus there’s a bonus track,

*circa Willard & His Bowling Trophies era if you ask me. I’m a fan.

**only slightly undercut by sequencing it right before ‘(I Wanna Join A) Biker Gang’.

^Do you have a favorite bar? / We can play pool with strangers
Maybe wear some lipstick and not be in danger / Of getting beat up in the men's room.