Merritt often protested that his songs were not based on his life. Maybe he protested too much. highway charm strip Has the pessimistic fatalism you might expect from someone who grew up leaving town almost twice a year. For example, the stately electro-rock of “Born on a Train” begins with Merritt evoking “Ghost Lord” and “The Walking Dead.” But what makes this song one of his best in Magnetic Fields’ vast catalog is a heartbreaking contradiction at its core. Merritt sings sadly. Wanderers like him weren’t born to run. They were destined to be pulled by powerful engines beyond their control.
None of this is actually sound Like contemporary alternative country like Jeff Tweedy’s pre-Wilco band Uncle Tupelo, not to mention the mainstream country stars of the era. Thrift-shop keyboards, out-of-tune percussion, Magnetic Field’s secret weapon Sam Davol’s swooping cello, his rope flowing along the distant echoes of the Crystals’ and Ronettes’ basslines, all lo-fi. Filtered through the darkness. But in the hands of a magnetic field, these hand-crafted tools have vast expanses. “Fear of Trains” juxtaposes synth shaking and lightness Dukes of Hazard Plucks is a sympathetic sketch of a young woman surrounded by the forces of race, religion and class, all teeming with railroad phobia. Gay and Loud was the name of Merritt’s publisher, but the tender ballad “I Have the Moon” only quietly hints at a possible romance with a secret lover: “You’re the other.” I’ve become like a man/But let me kiss you again,” Merritt said dryly. The dreamy “When the Open Road Is Closing In”, despite its calliope-like keyboards, has lullaby-like pace and sleepy vocals that remind us that highways are more than just a part of life. suggesting.Rather life – as another poet put it in once—is a highway: “The world is a motor inn in the highway slums of Iowa,” sings Merritt, warning “you’ll never go home again.”
The charm of the highway strip Arrived with all the jolts of a battered car stalled on the side of the road. Merritt refused to tour in support of it, and the album’s little coverage tended to combine with a near-contemporaneous follow-up. holidayHowever, the praise gradually gathered. In a short article from September 1994, a few months after the album’s release, spinCharles Aaron of . Back in December, the magazine deemed the record “frugal, lush metapop” and ranked it as one of her best of the year. (In the 1990s, Merritt worked as her editor for the magazine Copy. spin When timeout new york.)
Of course, eventually the magnetic field will disappoint again in the 1999s. 69 love song. A big gamble for Merge, the band’s swan song release on the label sold out quickly on a 3 CD set, earning Robert Christgau an A+. new york times Praising Merritt as a “contrarian pop genius”, various music publications ultimately ranked it on lists of the greatest albums of all time. Faced with dozens of fresh tracks to sort through, newcomers will have to cut out their work to come back to really find their appeal. The charm of the highway stripBut the album’s sly country-western ephemerality 69 love songInstant earworm sly determinism of “Dad Was a Rodeo”, “Never Say ‘Happy Anniversary'” from “I Think I Need a New Heart.” The projects are more similar than they look. holidayMerritt, like us, was in an endlessly adrift, constantly in a state of subtle reinvention. .
Additional research by Deirdre McCabe Nolan
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