A 50-Song Memoir Brilliantly Argues Music Can Change Lives
The tracks on the Magnetic Fields’ new album take on Stephin Merritt’s biography year by year, but the underlying story is about art itself.
When Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields was five years old, his mom took him to see Jefferson Airplane. The year was 1970, and Grace Slick had a message about the Vietnam War to deliver to the crowd: “I know we’re not supposed to care, but they’re killing children over there.”
At least, that’s how Merritt remembers it on , an album with one song for each year of his life up to 2015.“Even for my age I was small,” he sings in a deep deadpan as a simple, questioning bass line thumbs behind him. “I thought she meant a massacre was taking place inside that hall.” It’s one of those terrible and hilarious miscomprehensions of, to a kid who had no idea about the larger world, just means rightover there.
